Electric Power Systems Research 74 (2005) 203209

Stator ground fault protection based on phase angle differential

of delta third harmonic voltages
Tai NengLing , Deng Yan
Department of Power Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, PR China
Received 27 July 2004; received in revised form 12 October 2004; accepted 13 October 2004
Available online 30 December 2004

Abstract
New stator ground fault protection principle is presented in this paper, which takes into account the phase angle comparison of the thirdharmonic voltages at the generator terminals and the neutral. Analysis results show that the phase angle differential value of
-third-harmonic
voltages under normal condition and fault condition will present greatly different, and this characteristic could not be influenced by the operation
conditions. Thus, it can be used to detect the generator stator ground fault, which could ensure higher sensitivity because of cancellation of
the pre-fault component. The start-up component is based on the wavelet transform (WT), its effects are also described. Experimental and
field test results demonstrate that new scheme can obtain high sensitivity and reliability the generator relay required during different operation
conditions.
2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Stator ground protection; Phase-angle differential protection; Third-harmonic voltage; Fault contribution component; Wavelet transform

1. Introduction
As the most common fault, the stator ground fault makes
a big hazard for the proper operation of unit-connected generator, so great attention is paid to it. However, the key problem that affects the protection devices used for generator stator ground fault is still how to keep high sensitivity under
different operation conditions. Especially for a huge hydrogenerator, the protection schemes will suffer low sensitivity
as the capacitance of the stator winding is large. At the same
time, the entire stator winding must be covered when protection scheme is designed against ground fault. For example,
the demanded critical-resistance at neutral for huge generators in Three-Gorges Power Station is 8 k.

Corresponding author. Present address: Power System and Automation

Discipline, Department of Power Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University, Huashan Road, 1954, Shanghai 200030, PR China.
Tel.: +86 21 54809165.
E-mail address: lifeiseasy@163.net (T. NengLing).

0378-7796/$ see front matter 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.epsr.2004.10.008

Several kinds of protection schemes are currently used in

practice. Some schemes make use of the information obtained
from the variation of the injection current, such as the subharmonic voltage injection scheme [1]. However, the most inexpensive and widely used methods in practice are still those
based on the principle of the zero-sequence voltage [13].
Usually they comprise mainly two parts: the zero sequence
fundamental voltage and the third-harmonic voltage scheme.
When properly set, the zero sequence fundamental voltage
schemes can provide sensitive protection for 9095% of the
generator stator winding. However, it is very difficult to detect ground faults near the generator neutral, which is usually
protected by a third-harmonic voltage scheme as a relatively
inexpensive solution. The comparison of the phase angles and
magnitudes of u 3n and u 3t or only the magnitudes of them
are proposed in references [37]. Those schemes are strongly
related with generator operating situations, so they suffer the
disadvantage of low sensitivities. Reference [8] introduced
two adaptive schemes based on digital techniques to overcome this disadvantage. However, field experience and simulation results have shown that, for a huge hydro-generator,

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T. NengLing, D. Yan / Electric Power Systems Research 74 (2005) 203209

Fig. 1. Equivalent circuit of fault generator with only fault contribution voltage.

they still present low sensitivities because the capacitance

of the stator winding is large. Developed schemes with
higher sensitivities, which use wavelet transform as a new
tool for fault signal processing is described in reference [9].
Yet they need to be tested and tried out in experiment for
improvement of their performance before used widely in
practice.
Field experience has shown that, to high impedance
fault, fault voltages at the generator neutral and terminals are small change in comparison to pre-fault voltages
and thus the conventional schemes are insensitive. In addition, for a huge hydro-generator, it will suffer low sensitivity because the capacitance of the stator winding is
large [48]. This paper proposes a new approach with high
sensitivity to detect the ground fault in the 100% generator stator winding, which is termed phase-angle differential protective relaying for stator ground fault. The relay
requires a memory function to retain a pre-fault reference
signal and is therefore most easily realized in hardware
by a microcomputer. Encouraging results are obtained and
presented.
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the
theory of the protection scheme, Section 3 presents the proposed scheme based on phase-angle comparison of
-thirdharmonic voltages, Section 4 demonstrates and discusses the
experimental and field test results, finally the conclusions are
drawn in Section 5.

2. Analysis of
-third-harmonic voltages

The application of a ground fault protection scheme,
specially a 100% coverage scheme, is dependent on the
way the generator neutral is grounded and its terminal connections [4]. In this paper, a large hydro-generator is discussed, which is directly connected to step-up transformer
and grounded through a distribution transformer with a re-

sistance loaded secondary. The generator has 40 poles, 5

branches per phase and 36 slots a branch. The winding capacitance to ground per phase cG = 1.81 F, the inductance
of a turn L = 0.64 104 H and its corresponding resistance
r = 2.13 104 , the grounding impedance of the generator
(including the grounding transformer) referred to the generator side Z = 601.5 + j30 . Under ground fault condition, one
of branches in a phase will be partially shorted to the ground.
This fault can therefore cause an opposing potential in that
branch. The opposing potential is reversed from the calculated value as noted in references [5,8]. The circuit model
with grounded resistance for the fault generator is shown in
Fig. 1.
It is clear that the fault contribution potential can cause
currents which flow in the fault path of Fig. 1, the corresponding voltage will be induced at the neutral and the terminals.
According to the superimposed principle, the fault generator
can be resolved into two parts, respectively. One is the unfaulted generator in which the voltages at different point can
be obtained on coil basis [58], the other is circuit model considering only the fault contribution component at fault point.
Attention should only be paid to the circuit model in Fig. 1 at
this time. As the resistances of the generator winding have an
insignificant influence on the zero sequence voltage, this parameter can be neglected. In this case, the arrangement of the
fault component is determined by dealing with distributed capacitance. The third-harmonic voltage caused by the ground
fault is then identical through the whole windings. That is, the
phasor quantity increments of the third-harmonic voltages at
the terminals (
u 3t ) and the neutral (
u 3n ) of a generator
are almost equivalent.
There is:

u 3t =
u 3n

(1)

With a computer program written to solve the calculation of

that model on coil basis, the
-voltages including
u 3t and

u 3n are then easy to be calculated. Suppose is the ratio

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205

Table 1
Simulation results of third harmonic voltage phasor increments of generator in Three-Gorges Power Plant

u 3t

u 3n

|
u 3t /
u 3n |

arg(
u 3t /
u 3n )

0
0.5
1.0

0.5032 42.77
0.1508 37.435
0.5406 103.99

0.5030 42.77
0.1508 37.429
0.5416 103.95

1.0004
1.0
0.9982

0.0
0.006
0.04

100

0.5
0.75
1.0

0.1195 14.687
0.2448 68.259
0.4292 81.227

0.1195 14.680
0.2449 68.249
0.4294 81.213

1.0
0.9996
0.9995

0.007
0.01
0.014

1000

0
0.25
0.75

0.0909 104.41
0.0496 88.758
0.0557 29.4

0.0909 104.41
0.0496 88.762
0.0557 29.39

1.0
1.0
1.0

0.0
0.004
0.01

4000

0.25
0.75
1.0

0.0132 96.011
0.0148 22.152
0.0259 35.09

0.0132 96.014
0.0148 22.142
0.0259 35.08

1.0
1.0
1.0

0.003
0.01
0.01

8000

0
0.5
1.0

0.0122 112.97
0.0036 32.707
0.0131 33.8

0.0122 112.97
0.0036 32.714
0.0131 33.79

1.0
1.0
1.0

0.0
0.007
0.01

R
0

between the number of turns from the neutral to the fault

point and the total number of turns in series for one phase.
Table 1 is the simulation result of generator in Three-Gorges
Power Plant.
Table 2 is the experimental results of a model generator
at different fault locations under half load. The generator has
the following characteristics:
rated power: 15 kVA with a power factor of 0.8;
rated output voltage: 115 V;
rated excitation current: 1.55 A.
The third-harmonic voltages at the terminals and the neutral of a generator change with field excitation current and
the output power. This situation commonly happens during normal operation or during power swings. It is also the
main reason for limited sensitivities of conventional protection schemes. But the change caused by field excitation, the
output power and other reasons will be greatly different with
those under fault conditions [26]:
I. The ratio of
u 3t /
u 3n keeps approximately to u 3t /u 3n
under normal conditions.
II. The phases of
u 3t and
u 3n are inverse, i.e. the phase
angle between them is near 180 .
According to I, it seems that people can develop a new
scheme using the information of the ratio of
u 3s /
u 3n .
But it will not be perfect, because the magnitude of u 3t /u 3n
could be approximately to 1.0 even on normal conditions.
On the other hand, the protection schemes using only magni-

tude comparison of the third-harmonic voltages are not suggested in references [14], for they suffer the disadvantage
of low sensitivities strongly affected by generator operating
situations. However, the
-third-harmonic voltages at generator neutral and terminals will vary simultaneously while
a ground fault occurring in the generator stator, even if it is
grounded with a high resistance. Based on the above analysis, the phasor quantity increments of the voltage at the
terminals (
u 3t ) and the neutral (
u 3n ) of a generator are
also equivalent with the ground fault. So it is important to
indicate that the phase angle of (
u 3t /
u 3n ) under normal
condition and fault condition would be greatly different, and
this characteristic would not be influenced by the operation
condition. This information is contained in the signal measured by the protection relay, and as a result, it can be used to
determine whether or not a stator ground fault happens in a
generator.
3. Phase-angle differential protective relaying
3.1. Phase-angle differential protective scheme
The principle of phase-angle differential protective relaying is to use only third-harmonic voltage increments, which
will present with a stator ground fault. It is important to realize that phase angle between the incremental value of the
third-harmonic voltage at the generator neutral (
u 3n ) and
the terminals (
u 3t ) are equivalent. But it is near 180 under unfault conditions. According to that, the corresponding

Table 2
Measured value of the third harmonic voltage phasor increments of a model generator (metal-grounded)

u 3n

u 3t

|
u 3t /
u 3n |

arg(
u 3t /
u 3n )

0.4
0.7
0.9

3.111 18.80

3.116 19.05

1.002
1.021
1.001

0.25
0.46
0.4

2.899 53.76
2.515 42.52

2.961 55.3
2.520 42.12

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T. NengLing, D. Yan / Electric Power Systems Research 74 (2005) 203209

Fig. 2. Waveforms and their WT results of third-harmonic voltage at the generator terminals and neutral when the ground fault locates at = 25% with 100 
resistance.

phase-angle differential protection scheme for ground fault

is:
Operate, if
|(arg(U 3t (t)) arg(U 3t (t tc ))) (arg(U 3n (t))
arg(U 3n (t tc )))|

(2)

where t = kn is sample point, tc is the calculation time, 10 .

For improving the reliability, Eq. (2) should be calculated m
times (m  6) repeatedly.
The scheme considers only fault contribution voltages by
cancellation of the pre-fault voltages. On normal conditions,
u 3t and u 3n is inverse, i.e. the phase angles between u 3t and
u 3n is approximate to 180 , and the amplitude values of u 3t
and u 3n is usually different. So the new scheme can obtain a
higher sensitivity that is restricted only by the used protective
equipment.
3.2. Start-up scheme based on wavelet transform (WT)
Accurate fault initiation is based on the wavelet transform detection [1012]. As a suitable method for the nonstationary signal analysis, one will have the ability to extract important information from the distorted signals with
wavelets. Above analysis shows that the incremental values
of the third-harmonic voltage both at the neutral and the terminals are equivalent. This information is contained in the
non-stationary signal, which could be extracted by WT. Fig. 2
shows the detection of third-harmonic voltage singularity at
different levels with a 100  resistance grounded at = 25%
of an experimental generator. It modeled a large generator
(700 MW) in Three-Gorges Power Plant, and the sampling

rate is 1200 Hz. In Fig. 2, a1 and a2 refer to the third-harmonic

voltage waveforms at generator terminals and neutral, respectively. Their corresponding results of WT at resolution levels
1 and 2 are shown as in Fig. 2b1, b2 and c1, c2. It can be
seen from the figures that the maximum values of WT for the
fault voltage are corresponding to the local modulus maxima. Therefore, the dots 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 in Fig. 2b1 and b2
indicate the positions and the values of the modulus maxima in the first scale-space. It is important to recognize that
the polarity, location and the number of the modulus maximum are same between the WT results of the voltages at
the terminals and neutral. This phenomenon happens both in
the scales 1 and 2. And lots of tests have showed the same
results. According to that, the property of the local modulus maxima will provide sufficient evidence for a start-up
component of stator ground fault. In wavelet analysis, the
signal is partitioned at different frequency bands. So the finer
levels to be used to distinguish the ground fault are those
low decomposition levels such as level 1 and 2, which contain the higher frequency bands suitable for the singularity
detection.
Let MaxWTn,k,ut and MaxWTn,k,un be the modulus maximum of the WT waveforms of third-harmonic voltage at
the generator terminals and neutral, respectively. Where
n is nth level, k is the kth modulus maximum. Take
Fig. 2b1 as example, MaxWT1,1,ut MaxWT1,5,ut represent the dots 1 5 at the first resolution level. In the same
way, MaxWT1,1,un MaxWT1,5,un represent the dots 1 5
in Fig. 2b2. The start-up scheme is then given as follows:
If

MaxWTn,k1 < MaxWTn,k MaxWTn,k+1

< MaxWTn,k MaxWTn,k > 0

T. NengLing, D. Yan / Electric Power Systems Research 74 (2005) 203209

Then MaxWTn ,k is positive maximum value.

If

MaxWTn,k1 > MaxWTn,k MaxWTn,k+1

> MaxWTn,k MaxWTn,k < 0

Then MaxWTn ,k is negative maximum value. Consider the

polarity is same if MaxWTn ,k satisfies:
MaxWTn,k.ut > 0 MaxWTn,k.un > 0
or
MaxWTn,k.ut < 0 MaxWTn,k.un < 0
For improving the reliability, the polarity identity should
be compared m (m  3) times. Had all polarity comparison
present sameness, a start up alarm will be sent out.
Two criteria are necessary for the selection of the mother
wavelet in generator protection. Firstly, the shape and the
mathematical expression of the wavelet must be set such
that the physical interpretation of wavelet coefficients is
easy. Secondly, the chosen wavelet must allow a fast computation of wavelet coefficients. Investigated in the laboratory with a long time, the Daubechies wavelets which
described in [13] have been proven to be very efficient
in signal analysis. And it is also proven to be true after compared with some other wavelets, such as B-splines
wavelet and Morlet wavelet, and so on. On the other
hand, because the Daubechies 5-order orthogonal wavelet
has little computational coefficient, it is easy to be realized in the real-time application. So the Daubechies 5order orthogonal wavelet is employed in the proposed
scheme.

207

3.3. Reliability on different operation conditions

Under normal conditions, the zero sequence voltage
will change with field excitation current and the output power. This commonly happens during normal operation or during power swings. But it will not influence
the performance of the scheme. The reason could be as
follows:
I. The change rate of the third-harmonic voltages during
normal or a power swing is much slow [8]. Thus, the
waveforms of the voltage will present continuous. So no
singularity can be detected and the start-up scheme will
send no alarm.
II. On the other hand, the third harmonic voltage waveform
would present irregularity possibly when a big enough
sudden change happens. At this time, the WT results
have a definite number of modulus maxima. However,
it will be greatly different from the fault condition because of the phase angle between
u 3t and
u 3n is
near 180 . So the WT results of the u 3t and u 3n under
normal conditions and the single-phase to ground fault
would present different characteristic as shown in Fig. 3.
It can be seen that even if the location and the number
of the modulus maximum are same between the WT results of the voltage at the terminals and neutral, but the
polarities of the modulus maximum at the same location are inverse. As a result, operation conditions will
not cause any problem for the correct ground fault initiation. And it will not change the performance of the new
scheme.

Fig. 3. Waveforms and their WT results of third-harmonic voltage at the generator terminals and neutral when sudden change of the field excitation current
happen on normal condition.

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T. NengLing, D. Yan / Electric Power Systems Research 74 (2005) 203209

Fig. 4. Block diagram of one of typical relay hardware.

4. Experimental and eld test results

Table 3
Maximum protection resistance of new scheme

4.1. System design and connection

Sensitivity (k)

0
0.25
0.5
0.75
1.0

28.9
22.29
18.03
24.52
31.66

The relay hardware is a multi-processor system comprising a master controller and several DSP processors.
The DSP card is designed according to the low-cost principle but provides sufficient computing ability. For example, the TMS320VC33-150 floating-point DSP, which has
16M words program memory space, 34k words RAM, 75
MIPS, and 825 MOPS, will present better computation performance than TMS320F206, which has 64k words program
memory space, 4.5k words RAM, 20 MIPS, and 50 ns cycle time. But the price of TMS320VC33-150 is above three
times of TMS320F206 in China market. At the same time,
TMS320F206 has the good performance and flexibility to
meet the needs of signal processing and control applications
in protection. So it is used in this paper. The relay hardware, described in [9], is a multi-processor system comprising a master controller and one or more microprocessors
(TMS320F206). One of typical relay hardware is as shown
in Fig. 4. And a watchdog has been fitted to the master microprocessor to check its operation. The operation and performance of the proposed scheme are determined by both
hardware and software programs. According to the hardware
design, digital signal processing algorithms are used to filter the third-harmonic voltage and estimated the parameters
required for the relay.

portional to USE will be present. Thorough laboratory tests

were conducted before installation of the equipment to validate those schemes. The same generator discussed above,
was modeled in the laboratory. Experimental results under
various situations illustrated that the scheme present good
performance as shown in Table 3. It can be seen that the proposed method keeps higher sensitivity without maloperation
during all operating conditions. The protection relay was also
evaluated in the field condition. And the relay has operated
flawlessly on various conditions. It is important to point out
that the scheme caught a ground fault with a 21.6 k resistance, and the recorder did not show other traditional schemes

4.2. Experimental and eld results

An experimental prototype has been installed and tested,
coupled with the traditional protection scheme. Connection
of the protection device is shown in Fig. 5. Where G is the
generator, T is main transformer, S is a terminal point and N
is neutral point. At the secondary terminals of voltage transformer T1, the third-harmonic voltage U3n is proportional
to UNE . While at the open delta terminals of the voltage
transformer T2, a secondary third-harmonic voltage U3t pro-

Fig. 5. Protection circuit of the phase-angle differential protection schemes.

T. NengLing, D. Yan / Electric Power Systems Research 74 (2005) 203209

had caught it. This situation was anticipated and indicated that
the new scheme had higher sensitivity and reliability.
5. Conclusion
A new stator ground fault protection principle based on
delta third-harmonic voltage has been introduced. Since the
fault contributed third harmonic voltage at the generator neutral and the terminals are equivalent in a stator ground fault
generator, it can be used to detect the generator stator ground
fault. According to the analysis of the characteristic of phase
angle and magnitude of the
-third-harmonic voltage, the
paper proposes a new scheme only based on the phase-angle
comparison. At the same time, the WT results of the voltage
at the generator terminals and neutral, especially the modulus maxima at finer levels, provide sufficient evidence to the
ground fault initiation. Considering only fault contribution
voltages by cancellation of the pre-fault voltages, the scheme
can get higher sensitivity. On basis of that, new stator ground
fault protection scheme is developed and the practical implementation of the protection equipment is also demonstrated.
Test results from the experimental and field conditions also
proven its high sensitivity and selectivity during all operation
conditions.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to express their thanks to the financial support given by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract number 50107007. Experimental and field tests were conducted by Protection Relay
Research Group, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan and Shanghai Feizhou Automation Co. Ltd.

209

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