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IEEE SYSTEMS JOURNAL
Event-Triggered Vulnerable Relay Identification and
Supervision to Prevent Zone-3 Mal-Operations
Manas Kumar Jena and Bijaya Ketan Panigrahi , Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—Most of the recently occurred cascaded outages are
resulted due to zone-3 mal-operations of distance relays. This pa-
per introduces some new sensitivity factors to identify and monitor
vulnerable relays functioning in the power transmission network.
This information will help in enhancing the back-up protection op-
eration of the power transmission system. To accomplish this task,
indices such as line-outage-induced relay margin shift factor and
generation-outage-induced relay margin shift factor are defined.
An offline analysis of the power system is made to calculate the
above two factors. This information helps in ranking the relays
of the power system in terms of their vulnerability. Once the vul-
nerable relays are identified, their zone-3 operation is supervised
by a new wide area information-based event detection logic. IEEE
9-bus and IEEE 39-bus test systems are used to validate the pro-
posed scheme. The test results indicate that the proposed scheme
can enhance the back-up protection operation of transmission net-
work, which is very much essential to mitigate blackouts.
Index Terms—Back-up protection, blackouts, cascaded fail-
ures, distance relay, phasor measurement unit (PMU), relay mal-
operation, vulnerable relay.
I. INTRODUCTION
NHANCING security of back-up protection operation is
E one of the major need of today’s smart power system [1]–
[8]. It will certainly help in alleviating cascaded tripping leading
to blackouts [2]–[4]. Undesired relay operations have been con-
sidered as one of the main culprits behind propagation of most
of the blackouts. The point to be noticed here is that “not all
relay mal-operations lead to cascaded outages.” There are some
vulnerable relays operating in the power system whose mal-
operation leads to cascaded disturbance propagation. Thus, iden-
tification and real-time supervision of such vulnerable relays is
very much essential. Furthermore, relay vulnerability is depen-
dent on one or more contingency occurring in the power trans-
mission system. This leads to the fact that there is need of some
new sensitivity factors that will quantify the relay vulnerability
based on one or more contingency. Relay margin (RM) of a re-
lay is defined as the difference between the apparent impedance
and operation impedance (zone-3 characteristics [5]) at a spe-
cific load angle. Contingencies such as line outage, generation
outage, and relay mal-operation in some place lead to change in
Manuscript received May 6, 2018; revised December 8, 2018 and April 13,
2019; accepted May 23, 2019. (Corresponding author: Manas Kumar Jena.)
M. K. Jena is with General Electric (GE-Power), HTC, Hyderabad 500081,
India (e-mail: kumarmanas88@gmail.com).
B. K. Panigrahi is with the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi
110016, India (e-mail: bkpanigrahi@ee.iitd.ac.in).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSYST.2019.2919567
1937-9234 © 2019 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1
RM of the healthy relays of the system. Thus, in the planning
level, it is essential to monitor the effect of N − 1 contingency
[5] on the change in RM of the healthy relays. N − 1 indicates
one credible contingency event, such as line outage or generator
outage [5].
The concept of RM is demonstrated in [4], where the RM is
used to access dynamic security of the power system. RM is
derived as a function of bus voltage in [6]. Bai and Ajjarapu
[7] have suggested a new technique for transmission system
vulnerability assessment based on identifying critical relays. In
[8], a multiagent system-based technique is proposed to identify
vulnerable relays. In [9], an event understanding framework is
suggested to enhance situational awareness. A zone-3 modifica-
tion scheme that can avoid undesirable line outages is reported
in [10]. Several relay ranking schemes have been proposed to
identify vulnerable relays in a network. The effect of change in
network topology on distance relay is analyzed in [11]. In [12],
the relays are ranked based on Lyapunov stability criterion re-
lated to the severity of power swing. RM concept has been used
in [4] to measure the closeness of a relay from issuing a trip sig-
nal. A new approach is reported in [13], to locate all the electrical
centers following an unstable swing. In [14], authors have used
branch loss sensitivity measure presented in [15] to propose a
relay ranking index (RRI). The performance of various power
swing detection algorithms for the relays on the series compen-
sated lines are compared in [16]. The existing literatures either
focus on finding vulnerable relay or on zone-3 supervision. The
suggested scheme is a comprehensive one where in the offline
process, vulnerable relays are identified and in real time, only
those relays are supervised to prevent relay mal-operation.
The main contribution of this research paper is to introduce
two sensitivity factors that quantify the effect of (N − 1) con-
tingency on the RM. Following tripping of any transmission
line or any generator, the RM of other healthy relays gets af-
fected. In this research paper, the following two factors are
introduced:
1) line-outage-induced relay margin shift factor (LRMSF);
2) generation-outage-induced relay margin shift factor
(GRMSF).
These factors will help the system operator to rank all the
relays of the power system in decreasing order of their vulnera-
bility corresponding to each of the contingency (line outage or
generator outage). An offline analysis is made to calculate these
factors for the power system under study. Each factor results in
a matrix that relates the effect of each contingency to the RM.
The matrices are named as LRMSF matrix and GRMSF matrix.
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2 IEEE SYSTEMS JOURNAL

Fig. 2. Characteristics of a simple mho relay.

Fig. 1. Sample power transmission system.
For the system shown in Fig. 1, RM can be expressed as
follows:
After getting the vulnerable relay ranking corresponding to
each contingency, the relays whose zone-3 operations need RM = Zapp − Zop (1)
 2  2
supervision by a new algorithm are decided. In this paper, the
relays having high cumulative LRMSF and GRMSF are treated V̄m2 − V̄m V̄n cosθmn + V̄m V̄n sinθmn
S̄mn = . (2)
as “highly vulnerable (HV).” Once the HV relays are identified, zmn
their zone-3 operation is supervised by a wide area information- From Fig. 2, it can be seen that
based event detection (ED) algorithm. The ED algorithm is ϕmn = θl − Δθ (3)
developed using a lately proposed signal decomposition tech-
where  
nique named as “variational mode decomposition (VMD)” [17],   
V̄m  V̄n  sinθmn
[18]. The intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) obtained through Δθ = tan−1  2      (4)
VMD are used as input to a data-mining model known as V̄m − V̄m V̄n cosθmn
“random forest (RF).” In recent times, data-mining approach
V̄m2 Zl V̄m
has been suggested to solve various power system problems Zapp = =  2  2
S̄mn
[18]–[21]. The RF model helps in identifying contingencies V̄m − V̄n cosθmn + V̄n sinθmn
such as generator tripping, line tripping, and transmission (5)
system faults, occurring in the system. If a fault situation is
identified by both the ED model and any of the HV relays of (RM)mn = Zapp − Zop (6)
the transmission system, then only final trip signal is sent to  
Z̄l V̄m Z̄ri V̄m − V̄n cosθmn
the corresponding circuit breaker (CB). However, if ED model =  2  2 . (7)
does not identify any faulty situation and zone-3 of any HV V̄m − V̄n cosθmn + V̄n sinθmn
relay predicts a fault in the system, then the situation is treated
The apparent impedance seen by the distance relay can be
as a case of zone-3 mal-operation. This helps in improving
expressed as [4]
the security feature of the protection scheme. Thus, the two  2  2
important contributions of this paper are as follows. V̄m  (Pmn + jQmn ) V̄m  S̄mn
Zapp = =   (8)
1) Introduction of two sensitivity factors to identify vulner- 2 2
Pmn + Qmn S̄mn 2
able relays. and
2) Introduction of a new ED logic that supervises vulnerable
distance relays. Zop = Zl cosΔθ (9)
The rest of the manuscript is organized as follows. The formu- where
lation of sensitivity factors is detailed in Section II. The method- Zapp apparent impedance seen at bus m;
ology of the suggested scheme and ED algorithm is presented V̄mp voltage phasor at bus m;
in Sections III and IV, respectively. A discussion section is kept S̄mn complex power flow;
in Section V. Finally, the conclusion of this research paper is Pmn active power flow;
provided in Section VI. Qmn reactive power flow;
V̄mp voltage phasor at bus m = V̄m ∠θm ;
II. FORMULATION OF RM SENSITIVITY FACTORS V̄np voltage phasor at bus n = V̄n ∠θn .
The RM of a distance relay is defined as the distance between
apparent impedance (Zapp ) and operation impedance (Zop ) cor- It can be inferred from Fig. 3 that the radius of the circle
responding to a particular load angle. As shown in Fig. 1, the corresponding to the trajectory of the apparent impedance de-
apparent impedance sensed by the distance relay located at bus pends on the complex power flow through the transmission line.
m depends on the complex power flow in the line along with Larger complex power flow through the line leads to smaller
magnitude and the power factor of the load impedance. The RM radius of the apparent impedance trajectory (O1 , O2 ). It is also
for a typical mho relay is shown in Fig. 2. evident that the trajectory moves in the direction of T1 as the
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JENA AND PANIGRAHI: EVENT-TRIGGERED VULNERABLE RELAY IDENTIFICATION AND SUPERVISION
Fig. 3. Effect of change in complex power and the power factor on trajectory
of apparent impedance.
Fig. 4. Effect of change in active and reactive power flow on trajectory of
apparent impedance.
power factor decreases. Thus, it is concluded that both decrease
in power factor and increase in complex power flow decrease the
RM. A similar inference is also made in [3]. It is also evident
that incidents such as generator outage and line outage (planned
or mal-operation) lead to redistribution of power flows through
transmission lines. These power flow redistribution may lead
to substantial change in RM of distance relays operating in the
power system.
The effect of increase in active and reactive power flow on
the RM can be observed from Fig. 4 [3]. The trajectory of the
apparent impedance (denoted as P) moves in the T2 direction as
the reactive power flow increases. Similarly, the trajectory of the
apparent impedance (denoted as O) moves in the T1 direction as
the active power flow increases. Therefore, an increase in active
or reactive power flow will certainly decrease the RM.
The following points are to be noticed.
1) Change in active or reactive power flow affects the RM.
2) Change in load power factor will also affect the RM.
3) RM can be positive or negative or zero. A positive RM
indicates that the apparent impedance is away from the
trip boundary of distance relay. A negative RM indicates
a faulty situation, where the apparent impedance is within
the zones of distance relay. A zero RM indicates that the
apparent impedance is on the trip boundary of distance
relay.
Any line outage or generator outage may lead to change in
power flow in the line or change in load power factor. Thus, the
3
following two sensitivity factors are introduced in the proposed
scheme.
1) Line outage induced relay margin shift factor
ΔRM
LRMSF = (10)
fk0
where
ΔRM = change in RM following line outage
= RMinitial − RMfinal
ΔRM is + ve, apparent impedance is close to zone − 3;
ΔRM is − ve, apparent impedance is away from zone − 3;
and fk0 = original power flow on line k
2) Generation outage induced relay margin shift factor
ΔRM
GRMSF = (11)
ΔPi
where ΔPi is the change in generation at bus i.
The above two factors can provide sufficient information re-
garding the critical transmission line, critical generator, and crit-
ical relay of a power system. In this paper, critical line is such
line whose outage results in maximum change in RM (positive
value) of any relay operating in the power system. Similarly,
critical generator is that generator whose outage causes maxi-
mum change in RM (positive value) of any relay operating in
the power system. The most vulnerable relay is the one whose
RM gives maximum deviation (positive) in response to any one
of the contingencies of the power system. The proposed sensi-
tivity factors result in two matrices named as LRMSF matrix
and GRMSF matrix. LRMSF matrix is stored in such a way
that each row corresponds to one line in the power network, and
each column corresponds to each relay of the transmission sys-
tem. Similarly, GRMSF matrix is stored in such a way that each
row corresponds to one generator of the power system, and each
column corresponds to each relay of the transmission system.
Both the LRMSF matrix and GRMSF matrix can be obtained
in the offline process. This will help in ranking all the relays in
decreasing order of their vulnerability. Once the vulnerable re-
lays are identified, their operation can be supervised in real time.
With this background, the idea behind the proposed supervisory
back-up protection scheme is explained in the following section.
III. PROPOSED SCHEME
In this section, an ED algorithm is suggested that supervises
the zone-3 operation of HV relays. Fig. 5 shows the flowchart of
the proposed scheme. As shown in the figure, the HV relays of
a transmission system are initially identified using the LRMSF
and GRMSF factors. Phasor measurement units (PMUs) are as-
sumed to be installed on buses corresponding to the HV relays.
The identification of HV relays greatly reduces the requirement
of PMUs.
The positive sequence voltage (f ) information obtained from
PMUs is processed through VMD tool to extract IMFs present
in the signal. Generally, the first three IMFs capture sufficient
information regarding modes present in the input signal.
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4 IEEE SYSTEMS JOURNAL

Fig. 6. SLD of WSCC 9-bus system.

TABLE I
GRMSF AND LRMSF OBTAINED FOR WSCC 9-BUS SYSTEM

Fig. 5. Conceptual flow diagram of the proposed scheme.

In case of VMD, the following constrained variational prob-

lem is solved [17]:


2 

 j


min
∂t δ (t) + ∗ vm (t) e −jωm t

{vm },{ωm }
πt

m 2

Subjected to vm = f (12)
m
where f is the original signal (positive sequence voltage mag-
nitude), vm is the mth mode, and ωm is the center frequency
around which vm is mostly constant.
In order to solve (12), a quadratic penalty and Lagrangian as dynamic security assessment, development of catastrophic
multiplier is introduced in [17]. The augmented Lagrangian is predictors. [18]–[23]. Thus, the zone-3 operations of HV relays
set by using are logically connected through “AND” operator with the “ED”

 
2

algorithm. That means both the logics must agree that there is
L (vm , ωm , λ) = α
∂t δ (t) + j ∗ vm (t) e−jωm t
a remote end fault happening in the system before sending the

πt

m 2 final trip signal to the CB. Zone-3 of limited number of relays

  is needed to be supervised by the ED logic. This is the main


2
+
f − vm
+ λ, f − vm (13) advantage of the suggested technique.
2
where α is a balancing parameter. Parameter α is chosen as 250. The proposed scheme has been evaluated on the 9-bus Western
To solve the variational problem in (13), alternate direction System Coordinating Council (WSCC) system and IEEE 39-bus
method of multiplier (ADMM) approach is suggested in [17]. system simulated in PSCAD/EMTDC software. The system data
Thus, each mode is represented as are presented in [24] and [25], respectively.

fˆ (ω) − i=m v̂m (ω) + λ̂ (ω) /2) A. WSCC 9-Bus System
v m = . (14)
1 + 2α(ω − ωm )2 The single line diagram (SLD) for WSCC 9-bus system is
Contingencies such as generator tripping, line tripping, shown in Fig. 6. It consists of three generators [24]. LRMSF
and transmission line faults provide various spectral modes. and GRMSF are calculated for the 9-bus system and the list of
These modes help in differentiating a fault event from other HV relays for this system is listed in Table I. It is found that
disturbances. In this paper, entropy (E) and standard deviation RM of relays protecting line 7–8 and line 7–5 is mostly affected
(S.D.) corresponding to first “3” IMFs of the PMU data are se- due to line outage or generator outage. These relays are marked
lected. These signals are used as input features for the predictor as “RED” in Fig. 6. Thus, it is decided to supervise zone-3
model. In the proposed scheme, RF is chosen as a predictor operation of these relays only. It is to be noticed that forward
because of its high prediction accuracy. In recent times, RF has zone-3 is utilized to provide back-up protection to downstream
been successfully used in many power system applications, such lines. The timer of the zone-3 is set at 75 cycles [18].
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JENA AND PANIGRAHI: EVENT-TRIGGERED VULNERABLE RELAY IDENTIFICATION AND SUPERVISION
Fig. 7. SLD of IEEE 39-bus test system.
TABLE II
GRMSF AND LRMSF OBTAINED FOR IEEE 39-BUS SYSTEM
B. IEEE 39-Bus System
The IEEE 39-bus system considered for the validation of the
proposed scheme is shown in Fig. 7 [25]. The dynamic data
of the system are referred from [25]. The IEEE 39-bus system
constitutes 46 numbers of transmission lines. Thus, GRMSF
and LRMSF of 92 relays are calculated for IEEE 39-bus system.
GRMSF and LRMSF of the 10 most HV relays are listed in Table
II. It is observed that RM of relays such as 14–15, 15–14, 16–
15, 1–2, 2–1, 6–5, 5–6, 25–26, 21–22, 22–21 are mostly affected
following generator tripping or line tripping in the system. These
relays are marked as “RED” in the SLD of the IEEE 39-bus
system (see Fig. 7).
IV. EVENT DETECTION
The main objective of ED algorithm is to correctly identify
fault situation and to assist the HV relays in making a reliable
back-up protection decision. To achieve the same, a recently
developed VMD technique is used, which helps in extracting
various modes present in the PMU signal. These modes help
in distinguishing fault situations from other power system dis-
turbances. Advantage of VMD based preprocessing over other
existing schemes is detailed in [17], [18], and [28].
5
Fig. 8. Three modes observed at bus-25 following G-9 outage.
Fig. 9. Three modes observed at bus-25 following line 26–28 outage.
As discussed earlier, different power system events leave dif-
ferent spectral modes in the voltage or frequency signal of the
power system. The statistical properties of these modes assist in
distinguishing different power system contingencies. In order to
show this, three events such as generator outage (G9 of Fig. 7),
line outage (line 26–28), and line faults (three phase bolted fault
at 50% of line 26–28) are simulated in IEEE 39-bus system.
Positive sequence voltage magnitude signal at bus-25 (one of
the HV relay) is passed through VMD and the modes extracted
are shown through Figs. 8–10. It is observed from Fig. 10 that
the amplitude of mode-2 and mode-3 is more in case of fault
event compared to other two scenarios (looking at the y-axis
of each reconstructed mode).The primary reason behind this is
that faults induce high-frequency transients that are captured
by the PMUs. Subsequent decomposition of PMU signal using
VMD tool helps in identifying fault events. Thus, in the proposed
scheme E and S.D. [27] corresponding to first “3” IMFs of the
voltage signal are considered input features to the RF model.
The training of the RF model is accomplished by simulating
different contingencies in the power system with variations in
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6 IEEE SYSTEMS JOURNAL
Fig. 10. Three modes observed at bus-25 following three phase fault on line
26–28.
Fig. 11. Error convergence for WSCC 9-bus system.
different parameters. In this research paper, the following types
of disturbances are simulated:
1) generator outage;
2) line outage;
3) line to ground fault, line to line fault, line to line to ground
fault, three phase fault (with variations in fault location
from 10% of line to 90%, fault resistance variation from
0.01 to 100 Ω, variations in fault inception angle).
The target output is divided into two classes. Any disturbance
apart from fault situation is kept in class-0. The fault cases are
kept in class-1. Rattle software package [23] is used for RF
modeling. Total 1214 and 10 120 disturbances are simulated
for WSCC 9-bus and IEEE 39-bus system, respectively. 70%
of the total data set are used for training purpose. Rest 30% of
data are used for testing. The error convergence for out of bag
(OOB, which is 30% of unseen test data set) cases of both the
test systems are shown in Figs. 11 and 12, respectively. It is
observed that in case of the WSCC 9-bus system, the OOB er-
ror is stabilized after around 20 trees. Whereas in case of IEEE
39-bus system, the OOB error stabilizes after 90 trees. It is in-
ferred from the above result that with the addition of additional
trees to the forest marginal changes in the error is possible. It
is also observed from the plots that the OOB misclassification
error is higher for the fault cases than the other power system
disturbances. It happened because of the large variations in fault
parameters adapted in this paper.
Fig. 12. Error convergence for IEEE 39-bus system.
TABLE III
PERFORMANCE DURING STRESSED CONDITIONS IN WSCC SYSTEM
V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The suggested scheme intends to locate the vulnerable relays
operating in the power system in the off-line process. Once the
vulnerable relays are identified, their zone-3 operation is super-
vised by the ED logic. We noticed that the suggested scheme
performs securely during power swing and load encroachment
conditions. The simulation results are detailed as follows.
A. Enhancing Security During Stressed Power
System Conditions
The performance of the suggested algorithm is tested for var-
ious stressed conditions. Stressed conditions often cause zone-3
mal-operations. Thus, it is essential to observe the combined
effect of the suggested ED logic and existing zone-3 relays
in stressed conditions. The performance of both zone-3 relays
and the proposed ED logic is detailed in Tables III and IV. In
case of the WSCC 9-bus system, three cases each from stable
swing, load encroachment, generator outage, and line outage
are simulated. All total 12 stressed situations are created, and
it is observed that zone-3 mal-operations take place for nine
cases (all HV relays). Two test cases where stable power swing
caused zone-3 mal-operation of relay 7–8 are shown in Fig. 13(a)
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JENA AND PANIGRAHI: EVENT-TRIGGERED VULNERABLE RELAY IDENTIFICATION AND SUPERVISION
TABLE IV
PERFORMANCE DURING STRESSED CONDITIONS IN THE 39-BUS SYSTEM
Fig. 13. (a) Zone-3 mal-operation at relay 7–8 due to power swing condition
(contingency-1). (b) Zone-3 mal-operation at relay 7–8 due to power swing
condition (contingency-2).
and (b). The contingency-1 [see Fig. 13(a)] is created by simu-
lating a three-phase fault at 30% of line 7–5 of the WSCC 9-bus
system and clearing the fault by opening the CBs at both ends of
line 7–5 after 0.1 s of fault inception. Similarly, the contingency-
2 [see Fig. 13(b)] is simulated by incepting a three-phase fault
at 10% of line 9–6 and clearing the fault by opening the CBs
at both ends of line 9–6 after 0.15 s of fault inception. These
events create power swing on line 7–8. As shown in the figure,
the apparent impedance seen by relay at bus-7 protecting line 7–
8 stays within the zone-3 characteristics for a time period which
is more than the timer setting (75 cycles [29]) of the correspond-
ing zone-3 relay. Thus, the relay provides trip signal predicting
7
Fig. 14. Real-time test bed to test efficacy of ED logic.
this case as a fault condition. However, no mal-operation is ob-
served in case of proposed ED logic. As both the zone-3 relay
and ED logic are connected through logical “AND” operator,
thus both the logics must provide digital “1” as output in order
to send the final trip signal to the CB. This prevents undesired
tripping of lines during stressed conditions. The effectiveness of
the proposed scheme has been verified by comparing it to the
conventional blinder based schemes. The blinder settings de-
scribed in [29] are used for the comparison. The inner blinder
is kept outside the protection zone-3 characteristics. The outer
blinder settings are considered to keep 5% security margin resis-
tively away from the possible maximum load, and 20% margin
reactively away from the maximum reach of the distance relay
(mho type). As observed from Fig. 13(a) and (b), the apparent
impedance crosses both outer and inner blinder because of sta-
ble swing conditions. However, the blinder-based schemes miss-
classify the stable swing condition as unstable swing (incorrect
operation). Similarly, in case of IEEE 39-bus system, 80 stressed
situations are simulated out of which zone-3 of HV relays mal-
operated in 58 cases. However, no mal-operation is observed in
case of proposed ED logic. Thus, the proposed scheme reliably
supervises operations of HV zone-3 relays.
B. Testing Using Real-Time Digital Simulator
Fig. 14 shows configuration of the real-time test bed for
evaluation of proposed ED logic. The test bed is implemented
using Opal-RT simulator [30]. The RT-LAB software module
allows employing virtual PMUs within the power system model
and directly sends PMU streams via C37.118.2011 protocols to
phasor data concentrator (PDC). We tested the efficacy of ED
logic for fault conditions by simulating the IEEE 9-bus system
on one Opal-RT simulator and the ED logic on another Opal-RT
simulator. Virtual PMUs are used to send the C37.118.2011
compliant positive sequence phasors to the virtual PDC. The
virtual PDC processes the data and sends the trip signal back to
the simulator where power system is modeled. More than 100
cases are verified on this real-time platform. One test case is
detailed here. A three-phase bolted fault is incepted at 50% of
line 7–8 of the WSCC 9-bus system as shown in Fig. 14. It is
observed that following fault inception the ED logic provides
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
8 IEEE SYSTEMS JOURNAL
the trip signal to the corresponding circuit breaker and as soon
as the fault is removed, the trip signal is withdrawn. This shows
the dependability of the suggested ED logic.
C. Real-Time Vulnerable Relay Identification
The suggested indices can be derived in real time using PMU
information. The modern day distance relays such as SEL-421
are well equipped with synchrophasor capability. Thus, the iden-
tification of vulnerable relays can be done in real time. This will
help in updating relay vulnerability ranking following change
in system topology. Recently, new findings are detailed in [31],
which show compliance of the PMU/C jointly developed by
Hydro-Quebec and Vizimax for wide-area control applications.
This PMU is having a high data frame rate, such as 240 sam-
ples/s, which can be useful in capturing the dynamic behavior
of the system.
VI. CONCLUSION
A new supervisory control-based back-up protection scheme
is proposed. The scheme initially defines two new sensitivity
factors termed as LRMSF and GRMSF. These factors help in
identifying the HV relays of a power system. Further, positive
sequence voltage information of the buses corresponding to the
HV relays are utilized to develop an ED algorithm. The E and
S.D. of first three modes obtained through VMD are used as input
features for the data-mining model. RF is used to distinguish
fault situations from other disturbances. The scheme is validated
on WSCC 9-bus and IEEE 39-bus test systems. The results show
that RF as a classifier provides excellent classification accuracy.
We showed that the ED logic could provide reliable supervision
to zone-3 operation of existing HV relays. The proposed scheme
can enhance the security aspect of zone-3 protection, which is
vital to prevent blackouts in transmission system.
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