CURRENT TRANSFORMER (CT)

A CT corresponds to a transformer that is

current driven.
CT is used with its primary winding
connected in series with the line carrying the
current to be measured as shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4: CT connection
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CURRENT TRANSFORMER (CT)
A CT operates with its secondary under
nearly short circuit conditions.
The secondary circuit is connected to
ground in may cases.
Role of CT is important in protection and
measurement. Accuracy in current
conversion is very much important

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CURRENT TRANSFORMER (CT)
When CT saturates, large current errors
may result.
Digital relays, on the other hand, permit a
relatively severe degree of saturation as the
integrated saturation detector avoids
incorrect operation.
During normal operation, the flux density in
CT is small compared to its saturation
induction.
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 CURRENT TRANSFORMER (CT)
The induction increases proportional to
primary current and correspondingly the
voltage across secondary burden.
CT is generally dimensioned such that a
certain AC fault current can be transformed
without saturation. DC component of fault
current also affects operation of CT.
The simplified equivalent circuit of CT is
shown in Fig. 5.

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CURRENT TRANSFORMER (CT)

Fig. 5: CT equivalent circuit 5

 CURRENT TRANSFORMER (CT)
During saturation free operation, the
magnetizing current may be neglected. Thus:
I1w1 I 2 w2
The voltage drop at the secondary terminals
correspond to voltage across the connected
burden.
The burden consists of impedances of CT
secondary cables, the relay and any other
devices.

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 CURRENT TRANSFORMER (CT)
Standard Specifications of CT:
Primary rated current
Transformation ratio
Rated knee point voltage (Fig. 6)
Magnetizing current at the rated knee point
voltage
Resistance of the secondary winding

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CURRENT TRANSFORMER (CT)
The knee point voltage is defined by the
point on the magnetizing curve at which a
10% increase in the voltage corresponds to
50% increase in magnetizing current.

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Fig. 6: CT magnetization characteristics
 TRANSIENT RESPONSE OF CT
The induction of the CT is proportional to the
integral of the secondary voltage across the
magnetizing inductance. Thus, it is
proportional to the area below the
secondary fault current.
The DC component of the fault current
therefore results in single-sided severe
transient magnetization of CT which is
several times larger than AC component.

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 TRANSIENT RESPONSE OF CT
DC transient flux depends on time constant of
fault loop impedance (TN), as shown in Fig. 7.

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Fig. 7:CT induction in DC-offset short circuit current
 TRANSIENT RESPONSE OF CT
The increase of induction determines the
required over-dimension of CT to enable the
transformation of a fully off-set fault current.
DEMAGNETISATION:
Interruption of fault current by circuit breaker is
done at the instant of current zero crossing.
At this point, induction is at a maximum.
Following fast fault clearance, CT may still be
heavily magnetized due to DC component at
the instant of breaker opening. 11
 TRANSIENT RESPONSE OF CT
Demagnetization takes place via a transient
current in the secondary circuit of CT.

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Fig. 8: Magnetizing and demagnetizing of CT
 TRANSIENT RESPONSE OF CT
The induction is not reduced to zero as a
result of this, but only down to remnant
induction BR.
This state is reached approximately after 3
CT (secondary) time constants.
Unsuccessful Auto-Reclosure:
The most common case for rapid re-closure
onto a fault is the unsuccessful auto-
reclosure.

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 TRANSIENT RESPONSE OF CT
In Fig. 9, the course of induction for entire
fault cycle (C-O-C-O) is shown.

Fig. 9: CT Induction in unsuccessful auto-reclosure 14

 TRANSIENT RESPONSE OF CT
Based on transient performance requirements,
there are different categories of CT depending
upon the construction of CT core.
Closed Iron Core CT:
It transforms DC and AC current components
within a defined range of accuracy.
The remanence is however very high (Fig. 10).
Almost the total flux is reached after
transformation of an off-set fault current is
trapped in the core.
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TRANSIENT RESPONSE OF CT
It can only be removed by de-magnetization.

Fig. 10: CT classes according to 16

magnetization curves
 TRANSIENT RESPONSE OF CT
Consequence is: In unsuccessful auto-reclose
with instant of closing at most appropriate
moment, the flux almost doubles (Fig. 11)

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Fig. 11: Magnetization in unsuccessful auto-reclose
 TRANSIENT RESPONSE OF CT
CTs with Air Gap:
Air gaps in CT core dramatically reduces
remnant flux. At the same time, the
demagnetizing time is reduced to 1s or less.
In case of larger air gaps (linearized cores),
the DC component is dampened so severely
that a much smaller flux increase is achieved
and the core de-magnetizes very fast.
This following a shortetst auto-reclose, the
flux would have decayed to zero (Fig. 12).
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TRANSIENT RESPONSE OF CT

Fig. 12: Progress of flux in linear CT core 19

 POLARITIES OF CT
Assumption: Primary and secondary
windings are would in the same direction.
Polarity conventions are shown in Fig. 13.
The currents i1 and i2 flow in opposite
directions.
Voltage across windings have same polarity.
Polarity Mark Convention: Secondary current
flows out at the marked terminal when the
primary current flows in at the marked
terminal.
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 POLARITIES OF CT

Fig. 13: Polarity of current transformer 21

 CT SATURATION
As long as the CT is operated in its linear
range of magnetization, the total error is
small and its influence, particularly in
differential protection, may be neglected.
The situation however becomes critical
when the magnetic induction goes beyond
the knee point, i.e., CT is saturated. In this
case, large errors arise, that threaten
protection stability.
Fig. 14 shows the signals of a fault with CT
saturation.
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 CT SATURATION

Fig. 14: Transient CT saturation 23

 CT SATURATION
Due to large fault current, the flux increase
is very steep right from the beginning.
When the saturation threshold is reached,
the secondary current abruptly decreases to
a smaller current.
The primary current is again correctly
transformed when flux with a negative
sense is required.
A sequence of saturated and unsaturated
intervals continues.
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 CT SATURATION
As the DC current component decays, the
unsaturated intervals increase until there is
no more saturation in the CT.
A small amount of saturation that only
causes small error currents may be
accommodated by stabilizing.
Severe saturation however requires special
measures (saturation detector with transient
additional transient stabilization) to avoid an
unwanted tripping by the protection.

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 CT SATURATION
Reduction of DC Current Component:
With closed iron CT, the secondary time
constant amounts to several seconds. The
DC component of the fault current is
transformed correctly.
CTs with linearized core have very short
secondary time constants; thus the DC
component is damped quickly and even
sometimes swings to a negative value.
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 CT SATURATION
When connecting differential protection to
CTs of different types, the through flowing
current would therefore result in a differential
current consisting of the difference between
the DC component transient current of two
CT types. With a sensitive setting (generator
or transformer differential protection), this
may result in in undesired tripping if a
corresponding blocking filter is not provided
in the protection.
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 CT SATURATION
This however is not a problem with Fourier
filtering used in digital protection.
In computer relaying, the CT error can be
computed and corrected inside the
computer relay if the CT characteristics and
the burden impedance are given as inputs
to the computer relay. This clearly can not
be done in conventional relays.

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 VOLTAGE TRANSFORMER
Voltage transformer is much simpler than the
current transformer since the voltage and
hence the flux density in the core is nearly
constant, whereas the flux density in the core
of a current transformer varies with the
current. A typical connection of voltage
transformer is shown in Fig. 15.
The primary winding is connected between
lines so that full line voltage is impressed on
it. In contrast, in CT, primary is connected in
one line and carries full line current.
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 VOLTAGE TRANSFORMER

Fig. 15: Voltage transformer connection

In voltage transformer, the secondary operates
under virtual open circuit conditions.
Voltage transformers are more accurate and, in
general, their transformation errors can be
neglected.
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 VOLTAGE TRANSFORMER
A fairly common voltage transformer uses a
voltage divider network (Fig. 16).

Fig. 16: Capacitive voltage transformer and

equivalent circuit 31
 VOLTAGE TRANSFORMER
The voltage divider reduces the line potential
to few kV, and is further reduced to the
standard relaying voltage of 67V line-to-
neutral by transformer.
The capacitive voltage divider presents a
capacitive Thevenin impedance.
In order to eliminate any phase angle error
due to load current flowing through the
capacitive impedance, a tuning inductance L
is connected in series with primary winding.

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 VOLTAGE TRANSFORMER
By making capacitive and inductive
reactances equal, the secondary phase
voltage becomes in phase with primary
voltage.
In general, the steady state error of capacitive
voltage transformer (CVT) is negligible.
The transient response of CVT is of some
concern in relay design.

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 VOLTAGE TRANSFORMER
As the primary voltage changes suddenly
from its pre-fault value to its (smaller) post-
fault value, the output voltage undergoes a
subsidence transient before settling to its
final steady state value.
The subsidence transient magnitude
depends upon CVT equivalent circuit
parameters, burden impedance and power
factor, and upon angle of incidence of the
primary fault.
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 VOLTAGE TRANSFORMER

Fig. 17: CVT transient response: (a) complete

primary voltage collapse at voltage maximum 35
(b) Voltage collapse at zero voltage
 VOLTAGE TRANSFORMER
In general, as shown in Fig. 17, the faults
occurring at or near zero voltage produce the
worst subsidence transient.
The CVT transient response causes
difficulties in those relaying tasks requiring
voltage inputs.

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