1

Compensated Current Differential Relay

for Y- Transformer Protection
Y. C. Kang, Member, IEEE, E. S. Jin and B. E. Lee, Student Members, IEEE, S. H. Kang, Member,
IEEE, Y. G. Kim, Nonmember and P. A. Crossley, Member, IEEE.

Abstract A compensated current differential relay for Y-

transformer protection is described in the paper. The relay uses
the same restraining current as a conventional relay, but the
differential current is modified to compensate for the effects of
the exciting current. A method to estimate the circulating
component of the delta winding current is proposed. To cope with
the remanent flux, before saturation, the core-loss current is
calculated and used to compensate the measured differential
current. When the core then enters saturation, the initial value of
the flux is obtained by inserting the modified differential current
at saturation start into the magnetization curve. Thereafter, the
core flux is then derived and used in conjunction with the
magnetization curve to obtain the magnetizing current. A
modified differential current is then derived that compensates for
the core-loss and magnetizing currents. The performance of the
proposed relay was compared against a conventional differential
relay. Test results indicate that the proposed relay remained
stable during severe magnetic inrush and over-excitation, because
the exciting current was successfully compensated. The relay
correctly discriminates magnetic inrush and over-excitation from
an internal fault and is not affected by the level of remanent flux.
Index Terms Current differential relay, Core-loss current,
Magnetizing current, Compensated differential current,
Remanent flux.

I. NOMENCLATURE
Symbols
vA, vB, vC
iA, iB, iC
vab, vbc, vca
ia, ib, ic
iab, ibc, ica
ipa, ipb, ipc
i
RA, RB, RC

Definitions
Primary voltages
Primary currents
Secondary voltages
Secondary line currents
Secondary winding currents
Non-circulating components
Circulating component
Primary winding resistances

This work was sponsored by Korea Ministry of Science and Technology

and Korea Science and Engineering Foundation for their support through
ERC program (Next-Generation Power Technology Center, NPTC).
Y. C. Kang, E. S. Jin and B. E. Lee are with NPTC and Electrical
Engineering, Chonbuk National University, Chonju 561-756, Korea (e-mail:
yckang@chonbuk.ac.kr, jes222kr@yahoo.co.kr, mpeclab@chonbuk.ac.kr).
S. H. Kang is with NPTC and Department of Electrical Engineering,
Myongji Univ., Yongin, 449-728, Korea (e-mail: shkang@mju.ac.kr ).
Y. G. Kim is with Hankook IED, Inc. Korea. (email:
codacoda@daum.net)
P. A. Crossley is with School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
Queens University of Belfast, Belfast, UK (email: p.crossley@qub.ac.uk).

LlA, LlB, LlC

Ra, Rb, Rc
Lla, Llb, Llc
eA , eB , eC
eab, ebc, eca
RcA, RcB, RcC
LmA, LmB, LmC
ieA, ieB, ieC
icA, icB, icC
imA, imB, imC
N1, N2

Primary leakage inductances

Secondary winding resistances
Secondary leakage inductances
Primary induced voltages
Secondary induced voltages
Core-loss resistances
Magnetizing inductances
Exciting currents
Core-loss currents
Magnetizing currents
Number of windings
II. INTRODUCTION

Transformer protection relays must be able to discriminate

internal faults from all other operating conditions. A current
differential relay can discriminate internal faults from external
faults, but may maloperate during magnetic inrush or overexcitation. To prevent malfunction, restraining or blocking
signals derived from the current, or flux are used to stabilize
the relay when the exciting current is significant [1].
Most existing restraining or blocking methods are based on
the harmonic contents in the operating current. Einvall and
Linders [2] proposed a composite restraint function based on
the second and fifth harmonics. This method ensures stability
during magnetic inrush or over-excitation, however they may
delay the operating time of the relay on an internal fault.
Phadke and Thorp [3] suggested flux-restrained current
differential relays that calculate the core flux using the primary
voltage. The technique assumes that for magnetic inrush, the
magnetizing current and the flux comply with the open-circuit
magnetization curve of the core; for an internal fault, the flux
is proportional to the magnetizing current with a small slope.
However, remanent flux causes the locus of the magnetizing
current versus flux to deviate from the magnetization curve. A
solution, suggested in [3], involves the calculation of the slope
of the magnetization curve. If the slope is large, a counter
decreases; if the slope is small, the counter increases. When
the counter exceeds a preset value, a trip signal is activated.
The technique assumes the primary current is the magnetizing
current. Difficulties arise when magnetic inrush occurs on a
loaded transformer or during over-excitation.
Techniques have been reported that rely on the electromagnetic equations of a transformer [4, 5]. The operating
speed of this type of relay is very fast. However, the primary

(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)

ica

vB
+

vbc

ibc

+
iab

iC

vab
-

ia

di
v A = R1i A + Ll 1 A + e A
dt
di B
v B = R1i B + Ll 1
+ eB
dt
di
v C = R1iC + Ll1 C + eC
dt
di
v ab = R 2 i ab + L l 2 ab + e ab
dt
di bc
vbc = R 2 ibc + Ll 2
+ ebc
dt
di
v ca = R 2 ica + Ll 2 ca + e ca
dt

vca

vA

vC
iB

A
+

Fig. 1 shows a three-phase Y- transformer and its equivalent circuit. In this paper, it is assumed that RARBRC=R1,
LlALlBLlC=Ll1, RaRbRc=R2, and LlaLlbLlc=Ll2.
If there is no internal fault, primary and secondary voltages
can be represented by

III. COMPENSATED CURRENT DIFFERENTIAL RELAY FOR Y-

TRANSFORMER PROTECTION

iA

and secondary voltage signals are required as well as the

primary and secondary current signals.
A current differential relay is based on comparison of the
magnitude of the primary and secondary winding currents.
However, during magnetic inrush or over-excitation, the relay
may maloperate because the exciting current becomes significant. Kang et al proposed a compensated-current differential
relay for transformer protection [6]. The relay uses the same
restraining current as a conventional relay, but derives a modified differential current that compensates for the exciting current. Before the core enters saturation, the relay calculates the
core-loss current and uses it to compensate the measured differential current. When the transformer enters saturation, the
core flux at the instant is obtained by substituting the modified
differential current into the magnetization curve. The initial
value for the core flux is then used to predict how the flux
develops with time, and in conjunction with the magnetization
curve, it is used to estimate the magnetizing current. The relay
derives a modified differential current that compensates for
both the core-loss and the magnetizing currents. However, the
relay needs the winding current. Thus, for a Y- transformer,
the delta winding current has to be estimated.
The delta winding current can be decomposed into the two
components, i.e. circulating and non-circulating components.
The latter can be estimated directly from the line current but
the former cannot [4]. To apply the modified differential relay
to Y- transformer protection, it is necessary to estimate the
circulating component of the delta winding current.
A compensated current differential relay suitable for Y-
transformer protection will be described in the paper. The
relay estimates the circulating component of the delta winding
current; using the same method for obtaining the compensated
differential current as in [6]. The paper will describe the
operating behavior of the proposed relay and a conventional
differential relay using various EMTP simulated test scenarios
including magnetic inrush, internal faults and over-excitation.

ib
ic

(a) Three phase Y- transformer

A

iA

RA

L lA

i eA

vA

i cA

imA

RcA

LmA

RB

eA

eab

L lB

icB

i mB

RcB

LmB

iC

RC

eB

ebc

L lC

vC

i cC

imC

RcC

LmC

ib

Rb
ibc

L lc

N1 : N 2
i eC

iab

L lb

ia

Ra

N1 : N 2
i eB

vB

iB

L la

N1 : N 2

eC

eca

ic

Rc
ica

(b) Equivalent circuit

Fig. 1 Three phase Y- transformer and its equivalent circuit
A. Conventional differential relay
For the A-phase, a conventional differential relay derives
the magnitude of the operating differential current using

r r
r
I dA = I A I C aI a

(7)

where a = N2/N1. The magnitude of the fundamental

component of the restraining current IrA is obtained by

I rA =

r r
r
I A I C + aI a
2

(8)

The characteristic of the differential relay is given by

I dA I offset + KI rA

(9)

where Ioffset and K are set to 15A and 0.3, respectively, in this
paper.
B. Compensated current differential relay
As in (7), IdA of the conventional relay does not consider the
exciting current. Thus, during magnetic inrush or overexcitation, IdA may exceed the threshold and the relay
maloperate. The proposed relay uses the same restraining
current as the conventional relay but modifies the differential
current to include the effect of the exciting current. Fig. 2
shows the flowchart of the proposed relay.
To cope with the remanent flux, the proposed relay obtains
the modified differential current separately before saturation

and after saturation. Before saturation, since the magnetizing

current is negligible, only the core-loss current is calculated
and used to obtain the modified differential current. After
saturation, because the magnetizing current becomes
significant, both the core-loss and magnetizing currents are
calculated to obtain the modified differential current.
For a Y- transformer, to obtain the modified differential
current, the delta winding currents are needed. The procedure
of estimating the delta winding current will be described.
1) Estimation of delta winding current
The secondary winding currents iab, ibc and ica can be
decomposed into the two components, i.e. non-circulating and
circulating components.

iab = i pa + i , ibc = i pb + i , ica = i pc + i

start

sat_ind = 0

Voltages and
currents
Calculation of
eA, eB, eC and icA
Calculation of
i and iab

(10)

In [4], the non-circulating components were obtained as

i i
i i
i i
i pa = b a , i pb = c b , i pc = a c
(11)
3
3
3
However, i was not obtained in [4]. This paper proposes a
procedure of estimating i. Rearranging (1)(3) yields

di A
dt
di B
e B = v B R1i B Ll1
dt
diC
eC = vC R1iC Ll1
dt
e A = v A R1i A Ll1

sat_ind = 1

Calculation of
idA = iA+aiab-icA-imA

(13)
No

(14)

Calculation of A(t0)
sat_ind = 1

IdA> Ioffset + KIrA

Trip

(16)

(17)

Therefore, the modified differential current before

saturation can be obtained using (16).
3) After saturation (sat_ind = 1)
idA remains very small until the core enters saturation. When
the core enters saturation, the exciting current becomes
significant and thus should be included in the modified
differential current. Therefore, the modified differential current after saturation will be as
i dA = i A + ai ab icA i mA

idA|>Threshold

Yes

icA can be obtained as follows. With reference to Fig. 1(b),

icA is the current flowing in RcA. Since RcA can be obtained
experimentally, icA can be estimated if eA is calculated.
Because eA is estimated from (12), icA can be estimated by

eA
RcA

No

Yes

(12)

d (3i )
+ R2 (3i )
(15)
eab + ebc + eca = Ll 2
dt
The left hand side of (15) can be obtained from eA, eB, and
eC considering the turns ratio. Thus, i can be estimated by
solving (15). Finally iab, ibc and ica can be estimated from (10).
2) Before saturation (sat_ind = 0)
Before saturation, i.e. sat_ind = 0 in Fig. 2, the modified
differential current idA is obtained using

icA =

Calculation of
idA = iA+aiab-icA

Yes
Calculation of
A and imA

eA, eB, and eC can be obtained using (12)(14).

Summing (4)(6) yields

idA = i A + aiab icA

No

(18)

Fig. 2 Flowchart of the proposed relay

In (18), icA can be calculated in the same way as (17). Thus,
the procedure of estimating imA will be described.
If idA in (16) exceeds a threshold, the start of saturation is
detected ant then sat_ind = 1. At this instant idA is regarded as
the magnetizing current; hence, the core flux can be obtained
by inserting idA into the magnetization curve (see Fig. 3).
This flux value is considered to be A0 and is then used to
calculate A using

A =

e
t0

A dt

+ A0

(19)

where A0 is the core flux at t0. Therefore, imA is estimated by

inserting A into the magnetization curve.
Once imA is obtained, idA is estimated using (18) and the
magnitude of its fundamental component calculated. The
proposed technique can estimate imA irrespective of the level of
remanent flux during magnetic inrush.
The threshold for the detection of the start of saturation is
selected larger than the current value seen at the saturation
point; a value of twice the current at the saturation point was
used in this paper.

(Vs )

i dA

im( A)

Fig. 3 Estimation of A0.

IV. CASE STUDIES
Fig. 4 shows a single line diagram of the simulated system.
A Y- transformer (154kV/13kV) was modeled using EMTP
at a sampling rate of 64 samples/cycle. Internal winding faults
were simulated using the techniques described in [7].
The hysteresis characteristic of the core was modeled using
a type-96 element in EMTP, with a saturation point of (40A,
334Vs) and the anti-aliasing filters were based on Butterworth
2nd order filters with a stop-band cut-off frequency of 1920 Hz.
The threshold for detecting the start of saturation was set at
80A.
The proposed relay was compared against a conventional
relay under magnetizing inrush, internal winding faults and
over-excitation, and the results for the A-phase element will be
described.
A. Magnetic inrush
The magnitude of the inrush current depends on the energization angle, the remanent flux in the core, and the load
current. Two extreme cases are discussed in this section.
1) Case 1: Energization angle of 0 deg, 0% remanent flux,
no load
Fig. 5 shows the results for Case 1. The output trip signals
are shown in Fig. 5(d); the dotted and solid lines indicate the
trip responses of the conventional and proposed relays,
respectively. The transformer is energized at 29.2ms. The
energization angle was zero and consequently the core was
deeply saturated. As expected, the conventional differential
current consists of a sequence of pulses; the magnitude of the
first pulse is 1400A (see Fig. 5a). The conventional relay
enters its operating region (Fig. 5c) and activates a trip signal
5.4ms after energization (Fig. 5d). The proposed relay
calculates the circulating component and resulting delta winding current, which is shown in Fig. 5b. It detects the start of
saturation at 34.1ms and the initial flux of 347.7Vs was
obtained. Equation (19) is used to calculate A and then imA is
obtained by inserting A into the magnetization curve. As
shown in Fig. 5b, the resulting modified differential current is
reduced to a small value. Therefore, the relay does not enter
the operating zone and the trip signal remains inactive (Fig. 5c
and 5d).
Y-
6 [GVA]

50 [km]

(b) iA, -iab, icA, imA and idA (proposed relay)

(c) Conventional (left) and proposed (right) relays

55 [MVA]
LOAD

ZS

(a) iA-iC, ia and idA (conventional relay)

ZTL

Fig. 4 Single-line diagram of the model system

(d) Trip signals

Fig. 5 Results for Case 2

2) Case 2: Energization angle of 0 deg, 80% remanent flux,

no load
Fig. 6 shows the results for Case 2; this is identical to Case
1, except the remanent flux that exists in the transformer prior
to its energization, is equal to 80% of the knee point flux. As
expected, this forces the primary current to a value nearly
double that observed in Case 1. For a conventional relay, the
differential current has a peak magnitude of 2300A and this
forces the relay to enter its operating region; the trip signal is
activated 3.1ms after energization (Fig. 6d). However, the proposed relay calculates the delta winding current; it detects the
saturation start at 31.5ms and calculates an initial core flux of
342Vs. The relay calculates imA and icA and uses them to derive
the modified differential current idA. The value remains small
and consequently the relay does not enter the operating region.
B. Internal winding faults
Various types of fault were applied to A-phase of the
primary winding and the resulting voltage and current signals
used to test the proposed relay.
1) Case 3: A turn-to-ground fault, located 80 % from the
neutral end and at 0 deg inception angle
Fig. 7 shows the results for Case 3. The fault occurs at
29.2ms on A-phase of the primary winding. The conventional
relay entered the operating region 2.8ms after fault inception
and a trip signal was issued (Fig. 7c and 7d).
As the previous cases, the proposed relay calculates the
winding current, detects the start of saturation at 30.2ms and
evaluates an initial core flux of 346.0Vs. It issues a trip signal
2.8ms after fault inception (Fig. 7d), which is the same as
achieved with the conventional relay.
C. Over-excitation
1) Case 4: Over-voltage of 150% applied, full load
Fig. 8 shows the results obtained when the transformer was
over-excited by applying 150% of the rated voltage at 29.2ms
(Case 4). The conventional relay enters its operating region at
38.8ms and a trip signal is activated. However, the proposed
relay calculates the delta winding current; it detects the
saturation start at 36.2ms and calculates an initial core flux of
350.2Vs. The relay calculates imA and icA and uses them to
derive the modified differential current idA. The value remains
small and consequently the relay does not enter the operating
region.

(a) iA-iC, ia and idA (conventional relay)

(b) iA, -iab, icA, imA and idA (proposed relay)

V. CONCLUSION
This paper describes a compensated current differential
relay suitable for Y- transformer protection. The procedure
of estimating the delta winding current was proposed. In
addition, to cope with the remanent flux, the modified
differential current was obtained separately before saturation
and after saturation. Before saturation, the proposed relay
calculates the core-loss current and uses it to obtain the
modified differential current. When the start of saturation of
the core is detected, the core flux is estimated and used as an
initial value to calculate the core flux and the magnetizing
current. The relay obtains the modified differential current by

(c) Conventional (left) and proposed (right) relays

(d) Trip signals

Fig. 6 Results for Case 2

(a) iA-iC, ia and idA (conventional relay)

(a) iA-iC, ia and idA (conventional relay)

(b) iA, -iab, icA, imA and idA (proposed relay)

(b) iA, -iab, icA, imA and idA (proposed relay)

(c) Conventional (left) and proposed (right) relays

(c) Conventional (left) and proposed (right) relays

(d) Trip signals

Fig. 7 Results for Case 3

(d) Trip signals

Fig. 8 Results for Case 4

subtracting the core-loss current and the magnetizing current

from the measured differential current. The relay operates
correctly irrespective of the level of remanent flux.
The performance of the relay was investigated under
various operating conditions including magnetic inrush,
internal faults and over-excitation. Simulation results indicate
that the compensated differential current remains very small
during magnetic inrush and over-excitation, and as required no
trip signal is activated.
The relay is highly sensitive for internal faults, but remains
stable on magnetic inrush and over-excitation. The relay does
not require the inclusion of restraining or blocking techniques,
that often delays the operating time of a conventional relay.
VI. REFERENCES
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]

[5]

[6]
[7]

A. G. Phadke, and J. S. Thorp, Computer Relaying for Power

Systems, Research Studies Press LTD., 1988.
C. H. Einvall, and J. R. Linders, A Three-phase Differential Relay for
Transformer Protection, IEEE Trans. on PAS, vol. 94, no. 6, pp.
19711980, 1975.
A. G. Phadke, and J. S. Thorp, A New Computer-Based FluxRestrained Current-Differential Relay for Power Transformer
Protection, IEEE Trans. on PAS, vol. 102, no. 11, pp. 36243629.
M. S. Sachdev, T. S. Sidhu, and H.C. Wood, A Digital Relaying
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PWRD, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 16381648, 1989.
Y. C. Kang, B. E. Lee, S. H. Kang, and P. A. Crossley, Transformer
protection based on the increment of the flux linkages, IEE Proc.
Gener. Trans. Distr., vol. 151, no. 4, pp. 281289, May 2004.
Y. C. Kang, E. S. Jin, S. H. Kang, and P. A. Crossley, Compensatedcurrent differential relay for protection of transformers, IEE Proc.
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P. Bastard, P. Bertrand, and M. Meunier, A Transformer Model for
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