Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc.

General Electric Company

Dale S Finney

Normann Fischer

Ritwik Chowdhury

Bogdan Zdzislaw Kasztenny

Matchyaraju Alla

Jeffrey Glenn Mazereeuw

Michael Graham McClure

Zhihong Roy Mao

Adil Jaffer

William James Premerlani

Armando Guzman-Casillas

John James Dougherty

Mark Gerard Adamiak

Satish Samineni

Douglas I Taylor

Michael J Thompson

Ioan Marusca

Iulian Raducanu

Claudio Cargnelli

Rogerio Scharlach

Donald Glenn Thompson

Derrick Haas

Senthoor Navaratnam

Bogdan Z Kastenny

Mark G Adamiak

Breaker control units (BCUs) may include an output to selectively cause a circuit breaker (CB) to open and close a circuit, a voltage input to monitor a voltage of at least one of a bus and a line, a processor to calculate a point-on-wave switching time, and a remote input configured to be coupled to a remote intelligent electronic device (IED) to receive commands to selectively open and close the CB at a specified optimal time. Electric power systems may include such BCUs. Methods of switching CBs may include monitoring at least one of a bus and a line with a BCU and controlling switching of the CB at a predetermined point-on-wave value with onboard electronics of the BCU. The methods may additionally include calculating a trapped charge and/or a residual flux with an IED and causing the BCU to switch the CB at a specific optimum point-on-wave value.

Breaker control units and related systems and methods

The present disclosure pertains to devices, systems, and methods for monitoring a generator. In one embodiment, the system may include a measurement subsystem to receive a plurality of split-phase measurements of branch currents associated with the at least one generator. A split-phase transverse differential monitoring subsystem may receive the plurality of split-phase measurements of branch currents associated with the at least one generator and may generate an offset value representing a standing split-phase current. A protective action subsystem may generate a first protective action based on the phasor operating current.

Split-phase protection of generators

The present disclosure relates to systems and methods for protecting against and mitigating the effects of over-excitation of elements in electric power systems. In one embodiment, a system consistent with the present disclosure may comprise a point pair subsystem to receive a plurality of point pairs that define an over-excitation curve for a piece of monitored equipment. The system may receive a plurality of measurements corresponding to electrical conditions associated with the piece of monitored equipment. A logarithmic interpolation subsystem may determine a logarithmic interpolation corresponding to one of the plurality of measurements based on the plurality of point pairs. An over-excitation detection subsystem may detect an over-excitation condition based on the logarithmic interpolation, and a protective action subsystem may implement a protective action based on the over-excitation condition.

Accurate modeling of equipment overexcitation damage curves

Detection of, and protection against faults within a restricted earth fault (REF) zone of a transformer or a generator is disclosed herein. Security of the REF protection element uses comparison of a negative-sequence reference quantity. The REF condition is only detected when there is sufficient ground involvement and a fault in the reverse detection has not been detected. Dependability of the REF protection element in low-impedance grounded systems is improved by ensuring that the element operates when a zero-sequence reference quantity and a neutral operate quantity are orthogonal to each other. The REF protection element further determines an open CT condition and blocks detection of an REF fault upon determination of the open CT condition. A tripping subsystem may issue a trip command based upon detection of the REF condition.

Secure and dependable restricted earth fault protection for electric power generators and transformers

Detection and protection against electric power generator rotor turn-to-turn faults, rotor multi-point-to-ground faults, and rotor permanent magnet faults is provided herein. A fractional harmonic signal is used to determine the rotor fault condition. The fractional harmonic signal may be a fractional harmonic magnitude of the circulating current of one phase. The fractional harmonic may be a fractional harmonic magnitude of a neutral voltage. A tripping subsystem may issue a trip command based upon detection of a rotor turn-to-turn fault condition.

Generator rotor turn-to-turn fault detection using fractional harmonics

Protection devices prevent damage to synchronous generators during loss-of-field events. In various embodiments, a first protective element is associated with a first protection zone to protect a generator from a loss-of-field event at full load. A second protective element is associated with a second protection zone to prevent thermal overload during underexcited operation of the generator and to protect from loss-of-filed at light load. A third protective element associated with a third protection zone limits operation of the generator within the generator's specific steady-state stability limits. A fourth protective element is associated with a fourth protection zone to provide an alarm prior to operation of the second protective element. In various embodiments, characteristics and limits of each of the protective elements are defined in the same plane (specifically, the P-Q plane) to simplify settings and allow for visualization of the element characteristics and the generator capability curve at one or more temperatures or cooling capacities.

Generator loss-of-field protection

Detection of electric power generator stator ground fault conditions and protection of the generator due to such conditions is provided herein. In one embodiment, a generator protection element may calculate generator third harmonic voltage quantities using measurements from the generator terminals, and determine a stator ground fault condition using the calculated generator third harmonic voltage quantity. A tripping subsystem may issue a trip command based upon detection of a stator ground fault condition.

Generator stator ground protection using third harmonic

Electric power generator protection is secured by detecting wiring errors to an intelligent electronic device using terminal third voltages at the terminal (VT) and third harmonic voltages at the neutral (VN). When an angle between VTand VNis outside of an acceptable range, a wiring defect is detected, and certain protective operations are blocked. An alarm may be generated, facilitating personnel to identify and rectify the wiring defect. Wiring defects may further be detected when a torque calculated using VTand VNexceeds a predetermined error threshold. Security of protection elements is increased by detection of wiring defects that may have resulted in misoperation of the protection elements.

Security improvements for electric power generator protection

Disclosed are systems and methods to determine a direction to a fault of an electrical generator using sensitive current. A ground fault is determined using voltage signals from the generator installation. Incremental residual values of the sensitive current, along with the voltage, are used to determine a direction to the fault. The generator may be high-impedance grounded. The systems and methods further indicate the direction to a fault where multiple generators are connected using a common generation bus.

Sensitive directional element for generator protection

The present disclosure relates to systems and methods for detecting transient high-torque events associated with rotating machinery in an electric power system. In one embodiment, a relay may include an electrical parameters module that receives a representation of a voltage and a current at a terminal of rotating machinery in an electric power system. A torque calculation module may continuously determine a calculated torque value for the rotating machinery using the representation of the voltage and the current at the terminal of the rotating machinery and compare each calculated torque value to a threshold. An action module may generate an alarm when the calculated torque value exceeds the threshold. A log module may generate a log comprising a peak of the calculated torque value and a time at which the peak torque value occurs.

Detection of transient high torque events associated with rotating machinery in electric power systems

Disclosed are systems and methods to determine an overexcitation condition on electric power delivery system equipment that includes a magnetizing core. Overexcitation conditions are determined even during sub-synchronous resonance, ferro-resonance, and other complex events. Power system voltage is integrated and normalized to determine a flux on the magnetizing core. The flux is compared with a protection model to determine the overexcitation condition on the magnetizing core. Once an overexcitation condition is detected, a protective action may be taken to remove power from the effected power delivery system equipment.

Overexcitation protection for electric power system equipment

Detection and protection against electric power generator stator ground fault conditions in multiple-generator high-impedance grounded installations is provided herein. In one embodiment, a generator protection element may block a determination of a fault using third harmonic voltages when the third harmonic voltage from the generator is less than a factor of the maximum third harmonic voltage from all of the generators on the common bus. A tripping subsystem may issue a trip command based upon detection of a stator ground fault condition.

Multiple generator ground fault detection

Protection of an electrical generator includes determining a rotor and stator components using rotor and stator electrical signals, calculating a unbalance and/or differential component using the stator and rotor components, and determining a stator or rotor fault based on the unbalance and/or differential component. Further, the faulted phase and/or zone of a stator fault may be determined using the stator positive sequence voltage and negative sequence current.

Systems and methods for monitoring and protecting an electric power generator

The present disclosure is applicable to generators with low motoring power. In one embodiment, a generator protection element may include a generator monitoring subsystem configured to measure a real power output and an imaginary power output of a generator. The system may also include an electrical parameter threshold subsystem configured to determine whether the measured real power output and the measured imaginary power output satisfy a tripping characteristic. The tripping characteristic may be defined by a function having a slope with respect to a real power axis and an imaginary power axis. In some embodiments, the function may be a piecewise function that defines a first linear segment having a first slope and a second linear segment having a second slope. The first slope and the second slope may be equal and opposite. A tripping subsystem may issue a trip command based upon satisfaction of the tripping characteristic.

Generator protection element

The present disclosure provides apparatus, systems, and methods for preventing out-of-synchronism closing between power systems. An intelligent electronic device (IED) apparatus may include a control component and a delay component. The control component is configured to selectively control opening and closing of a breaker. The control component selectively outputs a close signal to cause the breaker to connect a first portion of a power delivery system to another portion of the power delivery system. The delay component is configured to delay output of the close signal to the breaker. The delay component includes circuitry independent from control by the control component and the delay component is inconfigurable from a remote location.

Growing community of inventors

Little Bras d'Or, Canada

Dale S Finney