Percentage Differential Protection

As discussed in the post “Transformer Differential Protection”, differential protection is supposed to

operate for the internal faults or for the zone of protection it is intended for. Differential protection is not
supposed to operate for a through fault. Through fault means a fault outside the zone of protection. Thus
as discussed in earlier post, for a through fault the differential current through the overcurrent element of
the Differential Protection Relay is zero while there is some definite value of Differential Current for
internal faults. But actually there are many limitations due to which a differential current flows the
Differential Relay in normal operation also.

A practical transformers and CTs pose some challenge to Differential Protection. They are as follows:

 The primary of transformer will carry no load current even when the secondary is open circuited.
This will lead to differential current on which the protection scheme should not operate..

 It is not possible to exactly match the CT ratio as per equation. This would also lead to
differential currents under healthy conditions.
 If the transformer is used with an off nominal tap, then differential currents will arise as the CT
ratio calculated for a particular Tap (Nominal Tap) will be different for different Tap, even under
healthy conditions.

Thus we see that because of the above reasons a differential current will flow through the
Differential Protection Relay. So Differential Protection will operate which is not expected to
operate for the above said reasons. So what to do to prevent tripping because of the
differential current caused by the above mentioned reasons?

To prevent the Differential Protection scheme from picking up under such conditions,
a Percentage Differential Protection scheme is used. It improves security at the cost of
sensitivity.

In Percentage Differential Protection, we provide a slope feature to the Differential Protection

Relay. In modern Numerical Differential protection Relay two slopes are provided. A typical
Slope characteristic is shown in figure below.
 Percentage Differential Protection
Notice an offset of to account for the no load current of Transformer. If we don’t provide this
offset then the Differential protection will operate during no load of Transformer and will trip the
Transformer Primary side Breaker which is not desired.

The current on the X-axis is the average current of primary and secondary winding referred to
primary. It indicates the restraining current called the Biasing Current, Ibwhile the corresponding
difference on Y-axis represents the differential current. The Differential Protection Relay will
pick up if magnitude of differential current is more than a fixed percentage of the restraining
current.

Let for differential Protection to operate, Id should be greater than the x% of Ib. Therefore,

Id/Ib> 0.0x

But Id/Ib = Slope of the curve

Thus Differential Protection will operate if the Slope is greater than some fixed value which is
set in the Differential Protection Relay. Carefully observe the operating zone in the Slope
characteristic of Differential Protection Relay. Consider the figure below.

Suppose, the current in the secondary of CT is 1A at normal operating condition. Therefore the
Biasing Current Ib = (1+1)/2 = 1A

While the Differential Current Id = (1-1) = 0A

Thus as discussed above, the restraining current is more than the differential current, Differential
Protection Relay will not operate.
 Percentage Differential Protection
Now assume a through fault, so the primary side CT current will be 2 A (say) and secondary side
CT gets saturated so current in secondary side CT = 0 A.

Thus, Differential current Id = (2-0) = 2A

and Biasing Current Ib = 2/2 = 1A

Thus we see that Differential protection will operate but it is not expected to operate as the fault
is through fault. Thus to prevent tripping on through fault we provide a slope so that Differential
current increases as the Biasing current increases and Differential protection will operate if the
slope exceeds a particular value (which can be set in the Relay).