Protection Intelligent Electronic Devices Research Articles

The Implementation and Evaluation of Virtualized Protection Intelligent Electronic Devices into a Virtual Substation

This paper presents an investigation into the virtualization of substation protection IED functions using a sophisticated co-simulation environment that integrates virtual intelligent electronic devices (vIEDs) with a real-time power grid simulation. Anchored by the IEC 61850 protocol, this study constructs a virtualized IED framework, emphasizing the encapsulation of protection schemes using the example of different types of overcurrent protection within a containerized vIED. Using open-source software, this study aims to replicate the communication and functional aspects of physical IEDs. This study uses a co-simulation environment that couples virtualized network components with a real-time power grid simulation to validate the vIEDs against real substation hardware. Simulation results from induced short-circuit events confirm the operational congruence of the vIEDs with their physical counterparts, demonstrating their potential to serve as cost-effective and adaptable testbeds for substation automation. This paper concludes that virtualized IEDs represent a cost-effective, flexible alternative for substation automation testing, with future research directed towards increasing the functional complexity and real-world applicability of these virtual systems.

Integration of a Heuristic Multi-Agent Protection System into a Distribution Network Interconnected with Distributed Energy Resources

In conventional method protection schemes are devised for certain operation conditions with fixed settings throughout their operation life, however, protection systems in interconnected distribution networks rely on a detailed analysis of fault current contribution and variation in operation conditions under real-world scenarios. In fact, the concept of Adaptive Protection System (APS) and possibility of the adjustment for protection settings within modern Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) have introduced desired functionalities for protection systems to cope with complex operation scenarios envisioned within future power system networks. In this paper, a novel protection system based on Multi-Agent System (MAS) and heuristic decision-making is proposed to update protection settings of the protection IEDs with respect to prevailing operation conditions in an interconnected distribution network. The adopted methodology is reliant on real-time simulation of a distribution network interconnected with Doubly-fed Induction Generator (DFIG) wind farms where different fault scenarios are applied to evaluate the functionality and performance of the proposed Multi-Agent Protection System (MAPS). In addition to that, combination of knowledge sharing between different protection IEDs and logic reasoning are integrated to fulfill protection task under real-world operation scenarios. The significance of the proposed MAPS is the improvement in protection system of the interconnected distribution network.

An Open-Source Protection IED for Research and Education in Multiterminal HVDC Grids

The integration of large amounts of renewable energy will require multiterminal high-voltage direct-current (MTDC) grids to reliably transport the energy over long distances. However, before building an MTDC grid, a functional protection system design is needed. Realistic and industrial studies are required to validate the functionality of such a system. In addition, further academic research as well as education in the field are needed. This paper presents an open-source, low-cost protection intelligent electronic device (IED) prototype for use in a laboratory environment. In particular, the IED design, its fastest measured performance, example results for different fault scenarios, and an assessment of its use in education are shown. The open-source IED is useful to accelerate industrial and academic research, as well as to enable education in protection for MTDC grids.

The support vector machine application in the implementation of multidimensional relay protection

Power engineering digital transformation, the use of different intelligent electronic devices (IEDs), high-speed communication protocols provide extensive opportunities for relay protection and automation systems modernization of power utilities. One of the most promising avenues of power engineering development is design of new protection devices, whose principles are based on the elements of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The article discusses the features of the application of one of the most common machine learning algorithms, the support vector machine, by the example of constructing a three-dimensional fault detector, which would serve to increase a transmission line stepped protection selectivity. The proposed fault detector has high recognition ability and ease of technical implementation as part of the protection IED.

Shunt Capacitor Banks Online Monitoring Using a Superimposed Reactance Method

A new indicating quantity, named superimposed reactance (SR), is presented in this paper to determine failed capacitor elements’ involved phase and number in shunt capacitor banks (SCBs). The proposed quantity is estimated using available measurements to the unbalance protection function of SCBs numerical protective relays. The proposed SR adopts calibrating factors for element failures online monitoring and can provide live report of the number of failed capacitor elements. The proposed method applications are: faster identifying SCBs faulty units, for fuseless and internally fused designs, and planning preventive/scheduled maintenance for all types of unit designs including externally fused units. With integration of these applications into protection intelligent electronic devices that provide captured and time-tagged event records via communication protocols for HMIs and SCADA systems, outage times would be reduced and smart grids reliability would be improved. The developed algorithm supports three different grounding arrangements, Wye-ungrounded, Wye-grounded via a low ratio current transformer, and Wye-grounded via a grounding capacitor at the SCB neutral point. Comprehensive simulation and fault-location sensing in PSCAD and MATLAB have verified the proposed algorithm performance. Advantages of the proposed method reports over conventional unbalance relaying alarms are also demonstrated using a commercial relay test results comparison.

Investigation of Using IEC 61850-Sampled Values for Implementing a Transient-Based Protection Scheme for Series-Compensated Transmission Lines

This paper investigates the applicability of IEC 61850-9-2 LE-sampled values in transients-based protection by implementing a line protection intelligent electronic device (IED), incorporating a transients-based hybrid protection algorithm suitable for series-compensated transmission lines. The IED is capable of subscribing, decoding, and processing sampled values to be used in the implemented protection algorithms. The proposed method of protection can distinguish between internal and external faults by comparing the polarities of wavelet coefficients of the line currents at either end of the line. The power system section, which the proposed protection scheme is tested upon, is implemented in a real-time digital simulator. Attention is given to replicate the constraints faced by an actual relay in the implementations of the IED. The results indicate that IEC 61850-sampled values can be effectively used in a transients-based protection scheme that is capable of operating under challenging conditions.

Simulation and real time analysis of network protection tripping strategy based on behavior trees

The collaboration of multi intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) in a protection system can improve the both selectivity and real-time performance of the system. To verify the feasibility and real-time performance of a network trip strategy based on multi protection IEDs, a modeling and real time analysis method of the protection system based on behavior trees is proposed. The model of protection IED and circuit breaker in the network trip strategy is presented; the model of the delay behavior of the wide area network with normal topology is further more presented; using a network tripping strategy as example, the theory completion time of every behavior in the system has been calculated. The validity of our method was verified via three examples; this method can also complete the real-time analysis of isolated faulty components in a protection system under circumstances of line fault, circuit breaker failure, and protection component refuse movement.

Impact of IEC 61850 Edition 2 on the object modelling of distribution protection IEDs

Edition 2 of IEC 61850 is the next step in the evolution of the standard that improves its functionality in order to better serve the smart grid. The study discusses the changes in the object modelling of multifunctional distribution protection intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) and how they improve the efficiency of engineering and maintenance of distribution protection and control systems.

Motor Reacceleration to Improve Process Uptime

Reacceleration is a method of automatically restarting motors after an unexpected deacceleration caused by system voltage events such as dips, outages, or bus transfers. Reacceleration schemes are designed to minimize process disruptions by rapid detection of supply loss, recovery/ monitoring of acceptable transient torque limits, and then automatic reclosure of the motor contactors. Depending on the connected load and minimum available fault current, the reacceleration may be “instantaneous” or a staged event designed to assure that the bus voltage is maintained at an acceptable level during the process restart. Poor coordination of the reacceleration process may cause further system outages if the nominal bus voltage drops below tolerable levels. Special consideration is required to prioritize loads, to maintain production, to prevent lifting of safety valves, and to avert equipment damage. Various processes differ in their ability to withstand temporary outages, from milliseconds (ms) to several seconds. Today's protection and control intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) provide settings, dedicated measurement, and timing circuits to allow these variances to be preprogrammed and activated based on outage duration and magnitude. Short-time outages within millisecond range combined with electrically held contactors provide the least complex situations for enabling a reacceleration system. More complex situations arise when motors are still decelerating and when the supply is restored, especially if the contactors were maintained closed during the outage. Certain more advanced IEDs also provide multiple reacceleration schemes that are automatically deployed based on longer outages—typically up to 30 min.

Design and Performance Testing of a Multivendor IEC61850–9-2 Process Bus Based Protection Scheme

The deployment of IEC61850-9-2 process bus increases the possibilities that new and refurbished substations will be based on the use of Ethernet communication networks with free allocation of Protection and Control functions. The design and performance testing of a multivendor prototype protection scheme based on the process bus for use in a mesh transmission substation is presented. A practical test setup is developed to evaluate the performance of the protection scheme, including interoperability between different manufacturers, degree of maturity, robustness, and possible benefits. This integrates network analysis software, test sets, conventional hardwired and IEC61850-9-2LE protection Intelligent Electronic Devices, Merging Units, Ethernet Switches, Fiber Optic communications and an IEC61850 process bus. The worst case scenario of traffic based on the current 100 Mbps network is created and the system responses investigated. Recommendations for process bus communication requirements are presented to avoid the degradation of system performance.

Impact of IEC 61850-9-2 Standard-Based Process Bus on the Operating Performance of Protection IEDS: Comparative Study

IEC 61850-9-2 is an international substation automation standard that proposes a Process Bus communication network between process level equipment and bay level Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) used for power systems protection and control.This paper considers the drive towards the use of IEC 61850-9-2 Process Bus in substations. The impact of the IEC 61850-9-2 standard on the operating performance of protection IEDs in terms of dependability, security, and operating speed is considered. A lab-scale hardware-in-the-loop experiment involving the Real-Time Digital Simulator (RTDS), IEC 61850-9-2 protection IED based on Sampled Values (SV) inputs, conventional hardwired protection IED, GPS satellite clock, and industrial network switches is implemented and used for the investigations.The experiments are directed towards the comparison of the performance of the distance protection function of the two protection IEDs when subjected to various fault types at various fault locations, fault resistances, and fault inception angles, with different Source Impedance Ratios (SIRs). Furthermore, the possible impact of random noise/delay on the protection functions of the IEC 61850-9-2 Process Bus based protection IED is investigated. The stability and security of the protection function of the protection IED based on SVs generated from the GTNET-SV card of the RTDS is investigated and compared to that of the IED based on conventional hardwired CTs and VTs.

Design of a Backup IED for IEC 61850-Based Substation

The IEC 61850-based substation automation system (SAS) provides opportunities for a new level of substation operation, enhancing operating efficiency and protection reliability with a new environment based on an Ethernet-based communication network and high-performance intelligent electronic devices (IEDs). With these changes, importance and dependence on IEDs are increasing rapidly in IEC 61850-based substations. While consideration of protection device faults has so far been infrequent, IED faults will become increasingly important in the future. Thus, this paper proposes a design of a backup IED for protection IED faults in IEC 61850-based substations. The proposed backup IED can be remotely converted into any type of protection IED without IED exchange, firmware update, or field control. The backup IED was designed through SCL engineering and file transfer functions in IEC 61850 and implemented by Windows programming with a commercially available IEC 61850 library.

Laboratory Investigation of IEC 61850-9-2-Based Busbar and Distance Relaying With Corrective Measure for Sampled Value Loss/Delay

After successful implementation of IEC 61850-8-1-based GOOSE at several power substations worldwide, major protective device vendors are currently developing interoperable products for IEC 61850-9-2-based time-critical sampled value (SV) messages over the digital process bus. Unlike GOOSE, the same SV message is not repeated several times and, therefore, it is important to analyze the impact of SV loss or delay on protection functions. This paper presents the hardware implementation of a typical IEC 61850-9-2-based process bus communication network for digital protection systems to investigate the proposed corrective measure for SV loss/delay. For the detailed testing, various process bus devices (e.g. protection intelligent electronic devices (IEDs), merging units (MUs), etc.) are developed over industrial embedded systems with a hard-real-time platform. The SV estimation algorithm is implemented as a part of bus differential and transmission-line distance protection IEDs, and it is tested for various SV loss/delay scenarios and power system fault conditions.

Standard Function Blocks for Flexible IED in IEC 61850-Based Substation Automation

Flexible intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) are highly desirable to support free allocation of function to IED by means of software reconfiguration without any change of hardware. The application of generic hardware platforms and component-based software technology seems to be a good solution. Due to the advent of IEC 61850, generic hardware platforms with a standard communication interface can be used to implement different kinds of functions with high flexibility. The remaining challenge is the unified function model that specifies various software components with appropriate granularity and provides a framework to integrate them efficiently. This paper proposes the function-block (FB)-based function model for flexible IEDs. The standard FBs are established by combining the IEC 61850 model and the IEC 61499 model. The design of a simplified distance protection IED using standard FBs is described and investigated. The testing results of the prototype system in MATLAB/Simulink demonstrate the feasibility and flexibility of FB-based IEDs.

96/05040 Fibre optics standardisation

IEC 61850-9-2 is an international substation automation standard that proposes a Process Bus communication network between process level equipment and bay level Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) used for power systems protection and control.This paper considers the drive towards the use of IEC 61850-9-2 Process Bus in substations. The impact of the IEC 61850-9-2 standard on the operating performance of protection IEDs in terms of dependability, security, and operating speed is considered. A lab-scale hardware-in-the-loop experiment involving the Real-Time Digital Simulator (RTDS), IEC 61850-9-2 protection IED based on Sampled Values (SV) inputs, conventional hardwired protection IED, GPS satellite clock, and industrial network switches is implemented and used for the investigations.The experiments are directed towards the comparison of the performance of the distance protection function of the two protection IEDs when subjected to various fault types at various fault locations, fault resistances, and fault inception angles, with different Source Impedance Ratios (SIRs). Furthermore, the possible impact of random noise/delay on the protection functions of the IEC 61850-9-2 Process Bus based protection IED is investigated. The stability and security of the protection function of the protection IED based on SVs generated from the GTNET-SV card of the RTDS is investigated and compared to that of the IED based on conventional hardwired CTs and VTs.

96/05036 An efficient approach to identify and integrate demand-side management on electric utility generation planning

IEC 61850-9-2 is an international substation automation standard that proposes a Process Bus communication network between process level equipment and bay level Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) used for power systems protection and control.This paper considers the drive towards the use of IEC 61850-9-2 Process Bus in substations. The impact of the IEC 61850-9-2 standard on the operating performance of protection IEDs in terms of dependability, security, and operating speed is considered. A lab-scale hardware-in-the-loop experiment involving the Real-Time Digital Simulator (RTDS), IEC 61850-9-2 protection IED based on Sampled Values (SV) inputs, conventional hardwired protection IED, GPS satellite clock, and industrial network switches is implemented and used for the investigations.The experiments are directed towards the comparison of the performance of the distance protection function of the two protection IEDs when subjected to various fault types at various fault locations, fault resistances, and fault inception angles, with different Source Impedance Ratios (SIRs). Furthermore, the possible impact of random noise/delay on the protection functions of the IEC 61850-9-2 Process Bus based protection IED is investigated. The stability and security of the protection function of the protection IED based on SVs generated from the GTNET-SV card of the RTDS is investigated and compared to that of the IED based on conventional hardwired CTs and VTs.