Differential protection of alternator or Merz -Price circulating current protection system

Differential circulating current protection scheme or Mertz Price circulating current scheme is a most popular protection scheme for
alternator stator protection. It function on the concept of compareing the two currents in and out of stator coil. In normal condition
the two current will be same, if fault occurs there will be some difference , and Merz price circulating current scheme works by detecting
this difference or differential current.

Connection and function of Differential protection of alternator

In each phase there are two identical Current transformer.This two CT is in two sides of to be protected zone. So for three phase there
are six no of CT’s. The secondaries of all CT’s are connected in star and other winding of each CT’s set are connected through cable
called pilot cable.Three coil are connected in pilot cable. They are connected in a equipotential point of pilot cable.

How it functions : Merz -Price circulating current protection syste m of alternator

Under normal condition there will be no current difference in two sides of protected zone, hence Two ct’s in a phase will conduct same
current. Thus currents from two ct’s will be balanced as current entering in same point of same value from opposite direction is
vectorically summed up as zero.(From Kirchhoff current law concept)

Basic of merz price circulating current scheme

Translay protection scheme for lines in power
system.
This system is similar to voltage balance system except that here balance or opposition
is between the voltages induced in the secondary windings wound on the relay magnet and
not between the secondary voltages of the line current transformers. This permits to use currenttransfor
mers of normal design and eliminates one of the most serious limitations of
originalv o l t a g e b a l a n c e s y s t e m , n a m e l y i t s l i m i t a t i o n t o t h e s y s t e m o p e r
a t i n g a t v o l t a g e s n o t exceeding 33 kV. In a 3-phase system one relay is placed at each end of
each phase of the 3- phase line. It can be simplified by combining currents derived from all the phases
in a singlerelay at each end, using the principles of summation transformer
summation transformer
i s a d e v i c e t h a t r e p r o d u c e s t h e p o l y p h a s e l i n e c u r r e n t s a s a single-phase quantity. The
three lines CTs are connected to the tapped primary of summationtransformer. Each line CT energizes a
different number of turns (from line to neutral) with aresulting single-phase output. The use of summation
transformer permits two advantages
(i) primary windings 1 and 2 can be used for phase faults whereas windings 3 can be used for earth fault.
(ii) the number of pilot wires required is only two
IMPEDANCE FAULT DETECTION

impedance faults are generally not detected by conventional protection functions like over
current, ground fault, distance, differential etc. because of the magnitude of impedance
involved in the fault path and the nature and characteristic of the fault current are special
and different than the conventional fault current profiles. Each type of high impedance fault
is unique in terms of magnitude of fault current, nature, characteristic and waveshape.
Majority of the high impedance faults are single phase to ground faults but this can involve
phase to phase elements as well. Because of the inability of the conventional protection
functions to detect high impedance faults especially high impedance phase to ground faults,
the electrical conductor remains live under such condition and as can be imagined, poses a
huge and significant risk to wild life and more importantly human life.

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CURRENT BALANCE DIFFERENTIAL PROTECTION
3 Phase Current Balance Protection A three phase current balance protection relay continuously
monitors a three phase AC current through current transformers, tripping upon an unbalanced load
condition. The output relay trips when the monitored current is outside of the user adjustable limit and
the LED ceases to illuminate indicating a fault condition. The trip point is adjustable from 3% to 20% of
the nominal current through the front control knob. The relay also has a built-in time delay, adjustable
from 0.1 to 10 seconds, used to avoid nuisance tripping. The output relay is set to de-energise in the
unbalanced condition ensuring the protection relay is failsafe. The relay is auxiliary powered and is
available with either a normally open or normally closed relay output.