Protective Relay Testing, Programming and Calibration

Protective relays are very similar to a standard relay, which is essentially an electrically
operated switch. When electrical current flows into the coil of a relay it creates a
magnetic field which will attract a lever and change the on-off status of the switch. The
protective rely detects abnormal power conditions and will activate the appropriate
response. It is important that these switches are tested and calibrated properly to ensure
the safety of both machinery and humans.

Protective relays are an essential part of protecting a power system by isolating the
components under fault and allowing power to be redirected to leave as much of the
network as possible operational. Currently there are two major types of protective relays -
analog and digital.

An Analog Protective Relay (known as a instrument transformers) is made up of two

major components, a current transformer (CT) and a potential transformers (PT). The
current transformer reduced the current in proportion to the current of the circuit, while
the potential transformer monitors single phase and three phase voltages. Additional
measuring and recording instruments may be used.

A Digital Protective Relay (also called a numeric relay) utilizes a micro-computer (also
called a microcontroller, microcontroller unit or MCU) to analyze the voltage and
currents in a power system in order to detect and prevent faults within the system. By
channeling low current and low voltage signals into a low pass filter, the alternating
current is sampled by the relays analog to digital converter (converts continuous signals
to discrete digital numbers [a time series consisting of a sequence of quantities, in which
each value is called a sample]) which collects 4 to 64 samples per system cycle. These
samples are than passed through a second low pass filter which will removes any
frequencies which are above the normal system frequency. The remaining frequency will
be processed through a Fourier transform algorithm (also called FT is a measurement of
molecular spectra, called a interferogram (a function of signal intensity versus time);
when two or more waves result in a new wave pattern) to compute the frequencys
magnitude and angle. Once calculated this information is passed into a set of protection
algorithms which are stipulated by the circuits manufacturer and/or circuit designer, to
determine an abnormal response, which in case is detected will trip or activate a specific
pre-defined response. In the case that a data logger is being used, a specific American
National Standards Institute Standard Device Number (ANSI SDN) or a specific data
code as per the designers preference if a non-standardized data capture model is used,
will be outputted by the Digital Protective Relay system.

For Digital Protective relays, it is possible to program a whole suite of monitoring tools,
in an embedded systems language such as FORTH, though this can be a costly and time
consuming process. Many manufacturers will have an already built platform which is
useable across their whole product lines. These ready built platforms, provide designers
and engineers the ability to work in a visual environment whereby the system
configuration can be matched together via a peg or layer approach and often can be tested
prior to actual hookup to the system. This becomes less actual programming to more
visual configuration design, which can save considerable time and effort.

Calibration is to detect and correlate the performance of equipment with measuring

equipment, to determine the accurate recording of data by the measure equipment, often
within standards set forth by a recognized national or international standard. With the
advent of purpose built Digital Protective Relays, the need for calibration has dwindled,
since many systems have built in testing suites, and automatic controls, it is possible to
run through a setup and configuration with virtually no calibration of the digital
protective relay. However, it is important to ensure that all equipment is functioning and
these systems still need to be tested for accuracy, typically on a yearly basis.

Protective Relays are an important part of any electrical system, as they will prevent
failures which can result in costly damage of equipment. It is necessary to ensure these
fail-safe measures are working at all times, and therefore it is prudent to test their
performance, as well as associative technologies to ensure worry-free long term
operation.

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