Distance (21) Protection

What Is a Distance Protection Relay?

Distance relaying is used to detect faults on long-distance lines, pinpointing not only the
fault condition but also measuring the distance between the current sensing mechanism
and the fault location in the wire.

A form of protection against faults on long-distance power lines is called distance relaying,
so named because it is actually able to estimate the physical distance between the relay’s
sensing transformers (PTs and CTs) and the location of the fault. In this way, it is a more
sophisticated form of fault detection than simple overcurrent (e.g. 50 or 51 relay). The
ANSI/IEEE number code designation for distance relaying is 21.

Distance Relay Reach

In order to understand the rationale for distance relaying on transmission lines, it is useful
to recognize the limitations of simple overcurrent (50/51) protection. Consider this single-
line diagram of a transmission line bringing power from a set of bus-connected
generators to a substation at some remote distance. For simplicity’s sake, only one
protective relay is shown in this diagram, and that is for breaker “F” feeding the
transmission line from the generator bus:
The purpose of the overcurrent relay tripping breaker “F” is to protect the transmission
line and associated equipment from damage due to overcurrent in the event of a fault
along that line, and so the relay must be set appropriately for the task. The amount of
fault current this relay will see depends on several factors, one of them being the location
of the fault along the transmission line. If we imagine a fault occurring on the line near
breaker “F,” the fault current will be relatively high because it is close to the generator bus
and therefore experiences little transmission line impedance to limit current. Conversely,
if we imagine a fault farther out on the transmission line (closer to breaker “G”), the
amount of current caused by the fault will be less, even for the exact same type of fault,
simply due to the added series impedance of the transmission line’s length
(if I=VZ and Z increases while line voltage V remains the same, I must decrease). Any
similar fault further downstream of the generators – such as a fault in one of the
transformers in the substation – will draw even less current through breaker “F” than a
similar fault on the transmission line for the same reason of greater series impedance.

An important concept in protective relaying is that of protection zones. Protective relays

exist to protect the power system from damage due to faults, and they do so by tripping
circuit breakers to interrupt the flow of power to a fault. However, in the interest of
maintaining power to customers, it is best for protective relays to only trip those breakers
necessary to clear the fault, and no more. Thus, protective relays are designed to trip
specific breakers to protect limited “zones” within the system. In this next single-line
diagram, we show the same system with rectangular zones overlaid on the system
components:
This zone diagram makes it clear that breaker “F” and its associated overcurrent relay
should only act to protect the transmission line from fault-induced damage. If a fault
happens to occur within one of the transformer zones within the substation, we would
prefer that fault be cleared by the protective relays and breakers for that transformer
alone (i.e. either breakers “H” and “J” or breakers “I” and “K” depending on which
transformer faults), in order that power be maintained in the rest of the system. This
means the overcurrent relay controlling breaker “F” needs to be sensitive to faults within
the transmission line zone, but insensitive to faults lying outside of the transmission line
zone. If the 50/51 relay happened to overreach its zone and trip breaker “F” because of
current sensed from a fault in one of the substation transformers, it would unnecessarily
cut power to the entire substation, with a loss of power to all loads fed by that substation.

At first, the problem of overreaching may seem simple to solve: just calculate the
maximum fault current in the transmission line due to any worst-case fault outside of that
zone, and be sure to set the overcurrent relay so that it will only trip at some
current greater than that amount, or set it so it will trip after a longer time delay than the
substation relay(s) will trip, to give the substation relays a chance to clear the fault first.

The weakness of this approach is that fault location is not the only factor influencing fault
current magnitude. Another important variable is the number of generators in service at
the time of the fault. If one or more of the generators happens to go off-line, it reduces
the generator bus’s ability to supply current to a fault. Another way of saying this is that
the power source’s impedance changes with the number of generators on-line. This means
any given fault downstream of breaker “F” will cause less fault current than it would if all
generators were on-line.

This causes a problem for the “reach” of the overcurrent relay controlling breaker “F.” With
reduced current capacity from the generator bus, the same relay setting that worked well
to protect the transmission line zone will now be too high for faults lying toward the far
end of that line. In other words, the overcurrent relay may underreach and fail to trip
breaker “F” because the amount of fault current for a transmission line fault is now less
than what the relay has been set to protect against, and all because we happen to have
fewer generators on-line to supply power. The impedance of the transmission line and
fault may be precisely the same as before, but the overcurrent relay will not trip because
the circuit’s total impedance has changed due to fewer generators being on-line.

We see that the location of a fault within a long-distance power distribution system
cannot be reliably detected by sensing current alone. In order to provide more consistent
and reliable zone protection for the transmission line, we need a form of protection better
able to discriminate fault location. One such method is to measure the impedance of the
protected zone, based on current and voltage measurements at the entry point of power
into that zone. This is the fundamental concept of distance protection: calculating the
impedance of just the protected zone, and acting to trip breakers feeding power to that
zone if the impedance suggests a fault within the boundaries of that zone.

Line Impedance Characteristics

Capacitance, inductance, and resistance are all naturally present along miles of power line
conductors: capacitance due to electric fields existing within the separation of the lines
from one another and from earth ground by the dielectric of porcelain insulators and air;
inductance due to the magnetic fields surrounding the lines as they carry current; and
resistance from the metal conductors’ length.

The capacitive nature of a power line is evident when that line is open-circuited (i.e. no
load connected). For the next few schematic diagrams, only a single phase (one “hot”
conductor and one “neutral” conductor) will be represented for the sake of simplicity:
Here, an oscilloscope shows the relative magnitudes and phase shifts of the voltage and
current waveforms, allowing us to make determinations of total circuit impedance (Z=VI).

Under typical load conditions, the resistance of the load draws a much greater amount of
current than an open-circuited line draws due to its own capacitance. More importantly,
this current is nearly in-phase with the voltage because the load resistance dominates
circuit impedance, being substantially greater than the series reactance caused by line
inductance while being substantially less than the parallel capacitive reactance:
A significant fault behaves like a very low resistance connected in parallel. This not only
decreases total circuit impedance but also shifts the phase angle closer
toward +90o because now the line inductive reactance is substantial compared to the
resistance of the fault. Real transmission lines tend to exhibit shorted impedance phase
angles nearer 70 degrees rather than 90 degrees, owing to the effects of line resistance.
The exact line impedance phase angle depends on conductor size and separation:
Since line inductance is a fairly linear function of line distance (a longer power line means
more inductance, given a fixed inductance-per-mile value), and this inductive reactance
is the dominant factor limiting fault current, the magnitude of the fault current becomes
an approximate indication of distance between the instrument transformers and the fault.

Using Impedance Diagram to Characterize Faults

Oscilloscope displays showing the raw voltage and current waveforms are clumsy
representations of line impedance. Better visual representations for impedance exist, the
most popular being a phasor diagram for line impedance with resistance (R) on the
horizontal axis and reactance (X) on the vertical axis, commonly referred to as an R-X
diagram. The three line examples shown in the previous section using the oscilloscope
are shown in phasor format here:
Keep in mind that these phasors represent impedance, and as such a short-circuited
(faulted) condition is shown as a short phasor, while an unloaded condition is shown as a
long phasor. It should also be noted that these impedances, while calculated from
measurements of voltage and current, do not change unless the line, load, or fault
characteristics change. If the system voltage were to sag due to a generator problem, for
example, the impedance phasor representing the combined effects of line and load
impedance would not be altered. Any protective relay operating on impedance would
therefore ignore such changes, and trip only if the line’s characteristics were to change.
This is precisely the behavior we need from a “distance” relay, enabling it to discriminate
line faults better than a simple overcurrent relay ever could.

For a normal load condition, the impedance phasor will be significantly longer than that
of the line’s full length (i.e. much higher impedance) with an angle significantly less than
that of the line impedance alone:
Short-circuit faults at various locations along a transmission line will cause the impedance
phasor to vary primarily in magnitude and angle. Recall that during fault conditions, the
resistance and reactance of the power line itself is the dominant impedance limiting fault
current. The actual fault is predominantly resistive, with a very small impedance value.

For a fault far removed from the relay, the impedance phasor will be long (i.e. relatively
high impedance) with angle nearly equal to that of the line impedance alone:
For a fault closer to the relay, the impedance phasor will be short (i.e. low impedance)
with angle slightly less than that of the line impedance alone:

The goal of a distance relay (ANSI/IEEE code 21) is to trip its circuit breaker(s) if a fault
occurs within its programmed “reach” and to ignore both normal operating loads and
faults lying outside its reach.

If additional sources of electrical power are connected to the far end of the transmission
line, it is possible for the distance relay to sense reverse power flow. Consider a case where
a short-circuit fault occurs on the generator bus shown in this single-line diagram:
A fault to the left of the distance relay manifests as high current and low voltage just like
a fault on the transmission line, but since the current waveform is inverted (180o phase
shift) due to the opposite direction of fault current, the impedance phasor ends up in an
entirely different quadrant of the R-X diagram. If the goal of the distance relay is to protect
the transmission line, we need it to ignore such faults, because to operate on such a fault
would be an example of overreach, the distance relay “reaching into” the generator bus
zone where it should be concerned with the transmission line zone.

Each of the R-X diagram’s quadrants may be labeled in terms of power direction and
power factor, either “lagging” (predominantly inductive) or “leading” (predominantly
capacitive):
Distance Relay Characteristics

A primitive electromechanical impedance relay design for detecting faults along long-
distance transmission lines uses a simple balance-beam mechanism to sense when the
ratio of line current to line voltage (IV) becomes excessive. It will trip if ever the impedance
became too small (i.e. too much I and too little V):
This relay’s operating coil (OC) is energized by a current transformer signal, while the
restraint coil (RC) is energized by a potential transformer signal. During normal and
unloaded operation, when voltage is high and current is moderate-to-low, the attractive
force exerted on the beam by the restraint coil’s magnetic field exceeds the attractive
force exerted on the beam by the operating coil’s magnetic field, and the trip contact
remains open. If, however, a fault condition occurs on the transmission line, current will
dramatically increase while voltage decreases. This combination of changes causes the
operating coil’s magnetic attraction to exceed that of the restraint coil, causing the beam
to tilt in a clockwise rotation, closing the trip contact to send a DC tripping signal to the
circuit breaker’s trip coil.

An important characteristic of this crude impedance relay design is that it is insensitive to

phase shift between voltage and current. In other words, it does not discriminate between
line impedance values having different phase angles, but will trip based solely on a
minimum impedance magnitude.

The “reach” of this impedance relay may be plotted on an R-X phasor diagram as a circle
centered around the origin of the graph:
Any line condition placing the impedance phasor tip within this circle will cause the relay
to trip. Any line condition placing the impedance phasor tip outside this circle will cause
the relay to be restrained (i.e. it will not trip). Thus, the reach of this relay is represented
by the radius of the circle sketched on the R-X diagram.

As you can see, this design of distance relay will trip for reverse-power conditions just as
easily as it will trip for forward-power conditions. Since we generally wish to de-sensitize
distance relays from “reaching backward” into a reverse protection zone, we must find
some way to limit the impedance relay’s tripping sensitivity in the reverse direction.

For the primitive balance-beam design, one solution to the problem of reverse-power
sensitivity is to use a directional relay in conjunction with the distance relay to block the
distance relay’s action during reverse-power conditions. The trip contact of a directional
relay could be wired in series with the trip contact of the impedance relay, such that the
only way to trip the breaker is if both the impedance relay and the directional relay agree.
We may represent this blocking behavior by drawing a line called a blinder on the R-X
diagram showing a threshold beyond which the impedance relay cannot operate:
Phase-shifting components inside the directional relay mechanism tilt its blinder
characteristic slightly clockwise from its natural (horizontal) characteristic. As you can see,
the blinder prevents all operation in the lower-left quadrant, restricting operation of the
impedance relay primarily to the upper-right and upper-left quadrants, with only a small
portion of the lower-right quadrant active.

Blocking the impedance relay’s action using a directional relay is a crude solution for a
crude relay design. Much better distance relay characteristics have been developed since.

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Induction Cup Distance Relay

A major breakthrough in distance relay design came with the advent of the induction
cup mechanism. This is similar in design to the induction disk mechanism explained in the
section on time-overcurrent relays, but designed to operate very quickly rather than very
slowly. An induction cup mechanism closely resembles a two-phase induction motor,
where a small cup-shaped metal rotor is surrounded by two sets of electromagnet poles.
Maximum torque will be induced on the rotor when the stators’ magnetic fields are 90
degrees phase-shifted from one another in time. When a positive torque is applied to the
cup, it rotates on its axis to close a trip contact, sending DC power to the circuit breaker’s
trip coil:

The amount of torque induced on the rotor (cup) is described by the following formula:

τ=VIcos⁡(θ−ϕ)−KV2

Where,

τ = Torque exerted on induction cup

V = Line voltage

I = Line current

θ = Phase angle of voltage with respect to current

ϕ = Phase angle of maximum rotor torque

K = Restraint constant of relay

Algebraically solving for the relay constant K at a point of zero torque (the pick-up value
for the relay) yields units of mho, or inverse ohms, which is why this mechanism is called
a “mho element”:

0=VIcos⁡(θ−ϕ)−KV2

0=IVcos⁡(θ−ϕ)−K

K=IVcos⁡(θ−ϕ)

K=[AmpsVolts][unitless]

K=[Mhos]

With no phase-shifting capacitor, this mechanism will be maximally sensitive to

impedance values of +90o, with a characteristic resembling a circle passing through the
origin of an R-X diagram:
This relay’s reach is defined as any impedance falling within the circle, just as we defined
the reach of the impedance relay. The difference here, of course, is that the “mho” distance
relay is entirely insensitive to conditions within the lower quadrants of the R-X diagram.

With the addition of the phase-shifting capacitor to the induction cup polarizing coil
circuit, the circular characteristic becomes tilted. Ideally, the angle of this tilt is set to match
the impedance phasor angle of the transmission line so as to make the relay maximally
sensitive to faults along the line.
With a tilted axis, the longest chord within the circle beginning at the origin of the R-X
diagram is one matching the axis of tilt. Therefore, the highest impedance value capable
of operating the relay and tripping the circuit breaker is one where the phase angle
matches the tilt: indicative of a low-resistance fault at the end of a transmission line,
assuming the circle’s diameter is proportional to the length of that line. Measured
impedances at any other angle must be lower (i.e. a “heaver” loading condition) in order
to operate the distance relay and trip the breaker.

If we compare circle characteristics for the simple impedance relay versus the “mho” relay
capable of tripping at the same end-of-line fault condition, we see a remarkable contrast:
Both relays have the exact same reach at the transmission line’s impedance angle, but the
impedance relay’s reach extends omnidirectionally for all phase angles and power flow
directions, while the mho relay’s reach is optimized for the forward power direction and
the line’s impedance, making it far more selective to faults along that line.

In some applications it is desirable to have the distance relay sensitized to certain values
of reverse impedance (i.e. the lower-left quadrant on the R-X diagram). The induction cup
relay mechanism is capable of having its circular reach characteristic “offset” with
additional components so that the circle covers part of every quadrant like this:
Another variation on the “mho” characteristic is to equip the distance relay with multiple
elements, each one with a different reach. The purpose of this is to
provide backup protection for other zones by allowing the distance relay to overreach its
primary protection zone:
Since distance relays trip whenever the tip of the impedance phasor falls within the
prescribed area on the R-X diagram, at first it may seem as though zones 1 and 2 are
pointlessly redundant to zone 3, since any fault lying within one of the inner zones will
certainly be within the reach of the furthest zone. Indeed, this would be the case if all
three distance elements operated at the same speed. However, if the zone 2 reach is
purposely delayed in its action to be slower than zone 1, and zone 3 purposely delayed
to make it slower than zone 2, the distance relay will serve to provide remote
backup protection for the substation bus and transformer zones in the event the
protective relays and/or breakers for those zones fail to properly clear a fault.

The following photograph shows a pair of Westinghouse electromechanical distance

relays mounted next to a pair of time-delay units, each timer providing a different amount
of delay for each of the two zones of protection afforded by the distance relays:
In the age of microprocessor relays, this design philosophy of physically wiring time-delay
relays to the outputs of electromechanical protective relays for multi-zone protection may
seem archaic, but it represents standard practice in distance relaying for a number of
decades. Of course, modern microprocessor-based distance relays are able to perform all
the necessary zone timing functions along with distance-sensing fault detection within
the same unit, and do so with a degree of precision unthinkable with electromechanical
relays.

Modern microprocessor-based distance relays are not constrained to circular reach

characteristics either, and thus may be programmed to implement a variety of interesting
reach functions. Although the traditional “mho” characteristic is still available as an option
within digital distance relays, another form of reach called the quadrilateral (or “quad” for
short) is often provided, whereby the distance relay may be configured to trip for any
impedance phasor lying within a four-sided boundary:

Another common option within digital distance relays is the load encroachment blocking
characteristic, designed to prevent relay tripping on heavy (legitimate) loads that might
otherwise fall within the reach of the distance relay’s characteristic:
REVIEW:

 Distance relay technology allows for identification of the fault and its location
with respect to the sensing device.
 Omni-directional distance relaying protects against faults of both forward
and reverse power conditions.
 Directionally-optimized distancing relay designs can be made more sensitive
to forward or reverse power with the addition of phase-shifting capacitors.