556
1, FEBRUARY 2017
Reliability Assessment of Protective Relays in
Harmonic-Polluted Power Systems
J. Jedrzejczak, G. J. Anders, Life Fellow, IEEE, M. Fotuhi-Firuzabad, Fellow, IEEE, H. Farzin,
and F. Aminifar, Senior Member, IEEE
AbstractProliferation of distributed generations (DGs) and
power-electronics-based loads is bringing about more harmonic-
polluted power signals. While some failures may occur as a
consequence of nonsinusoidal current or voltage waveforms,
existing reliability models of protection relays have not taken
the harmonic-related failures into consideration. This paper
develops a comprehensive Markov reliability model to categorize
the possible functional states of a component, say a transmission
line, protected by a relay, operating in a harmonic-polluted
environment. In order to make the proposed model practically
tractable, it is further simplified in two ways, through merging the
states of the same consequence. The first simplified model focuses
on the power component reliability assessment; while the other
is built for reliability analysis of a protection system. Calculation
of transition rates and how the resultant model is mathematically
evaluated are then discussed. Numerical analyses and outcomes
are based on the real-world data taken from Canadian substations.
Accordingly, the results and conclusions drawn in this paper
would be interesting to both academia and industry. Moreover, the
proposed reliability assessment methodology is readily applicable
in scrutinizing the impacts of harmonic pollution on the protection
devices of other power components.
Index TermsDistributed generations, failure analysis, fre-
quency balance approach, harmonics, power system reliability,
protective relay, stochastic Markov model, transition rates.
NOMENCLATURE
A, B, C Protected power system components.
RA , RB , RC Protective relays.
UP Relay or component is in operating condition.
DN Component or protection system is failed.
ISO Relay tripped and isolated the protected com-
ponent.
1 Line primary protection (RC ) related failure
rate (FR)a backup relay (RA ) isolates both
faulted C and healthy A objects.
Manuscript received July 31, 2015; revised January 23, 2016; accepted March
18, 2016. Date of publication March 22, 2016; date of current version January
20, 2017. Paper no. TPWRD-01028-2015.R1.
J. Jedrzejczak and G. J. Anders are with the Department of Microelectronics
and Computer Science of the Lodz University of Technology, Lodz, Poland
(e-mail: mr.jak.jed@gmail.com; george.anders@p.lodz.pl).
M. Fotuhi-Firuzabad and H. Farzin are with the Department of Electrical
Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran (e-mail: fotuhi@
sharif.edu; farzin@ee.sharif.edu).
F. Aminifar is with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran (e-mail: aminifar@
ece.ut.ac.ir).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http//ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2016.2544801
0885-8977 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 32, NO.
21 Primary relay (RA ) dependability FR.
22 Primary relay (RA ) unavailability FR.
3 Primary relay (RA ) security FR.
21 , 23 Repair rates of a protected component A.
1 , 22 , 3 Automatic switching rates due to main
(RA , RC ) or backup (RA , RB ) protections
trip commands.
I. INTRODUCTION
N RECENT years, the extent of harmonic components in-
I jected in voltage and current waveforms has significantly
increased. Although nonlinear loads and devices such as trans-
formers and welding machines have been present in power sys-
tem since early years, this observation is mainly due to increased
application of power electronic converters. The existing trend
towards using more renewable energy resources such as wind
and photovoltaic generations, which requires cycloconverters
and inverters to deliver harvested energy into the power system,
has also been a major cause for the present situation.
Harmonic contents have various impacts on a power system
operation. In contrast to harmonic-related phenomena such as
increasing energy losses, reducing available capacity of power
equipment and causing harmonic resonance, the studies regard-
ing the effects on protection systems are limited and this topic
has not yet been thoroughly investigated [1][4].
Careful review of the prior works reveals that harmonics may
have two possible impacts on overcurrent relays [1][4]:
1) When harmonic components are present, a relays pick up
current may change; i.e., the relay may not trip in some
fault events and the protected component will carry higher
RMS currents than its rated value, and thus will experience
extra heat. This situation may, in turn, result in damage to
the component and more frequent failure events.
2) Depending on the relay harmonic response characteristics
and harmonic contents, relay tripping times may change
and this undesirable attribute may cause the protection
system loss of coordination. For example, while tripping
of the primary protection is delayed due to harmonic-
polluted currents, the backup protection relay may falsely
trip and put some additional components, as well as the
faulted one out of service.
Two major failure modes of a relay are failure to trip and
undesired operation. Relays reliability considerations usually
address the two distinct aspects of dependability and security
JEDRZEJCZAK et al.: RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT OF PROTECTIVE RELAYS IN HARMONIC-POLLUTED POWER SYSTEMS 557

[5]. Dependability is defined as the probability that a relaying

system will operate correctly. In other words, dependability is a
measure of the relays ability to operate when required. Security
is defined as the probability that the relay will not operate in
those situations when tripping is not desired.
The aim of this paper is to examine the effects of harmonic
components on the operation of protective relays in power sys-
Fig. 1. The schematic illustration of the system under study.
tem automation and then to determine their effects on power
system reliability. The idea is to devise a comprehensive Markov
model, incorporating all the states in which an electromechani-
cal or digital relay resides, while protecting a system with har-
monic injections [6] and then to create a simplified version that
can be used in power system reliability studies. It will be shown
in the paper that such simplification can be performed in two
different ways, depending on the focus of the reliability analysis.
The data used in the studies was reported by a transmission
company in Canada. Presence of DG sources and harmonic pro-
ducing loads were the origin of harmonic-polluted signals used
here. The harmonic spectrum for the system being examined is
known and was reported in [6]. However, failure rates (FRs) for
harmonic related outages are not available, as only recently this
issue came to the forefront of reliability investigations and it
will take some time until the relevant historical information is
collected and the rates can be obtained.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: (1) de-
velopment of a general protection system reliability model and
simplified models for power component and protection system
assessments, which is discussed in Section II, (2) calculation of
the associated probability indices, harmonics contributions and
steps helpful for the estimation of transition rates, presented in
Sections III and IV, and (3) power system reliability evaluation,
addressed in Section V.
Fig. 2. Markov model of component A and its associated protection system.
II. STOCHASTIC MARKOV MODEL
Considerable research has been conducted to obtain suitable termine the model transition rates. The shortcomings of the
reliability models of a component and its associated protection reviewed literature is the asset of the following reliability anal-
system for various applications [7][9]. Some models are appro- ysis which combines the performance of protection equipment
priate for individual components and the associated protection subjected to polluted signals and small-area reliability concepts
relay reliability evaluation, while others are developed in a way into a single application.
that is apt for the system reliability assessment. In this paper, the component under study, which is a trans-
The performance of modern digital relays with self-checking mission line, is called A and its primary protection is called
and monitoring solutions for transmission line applications is RA . RA is also a backup relay for the component C which
analyzed in [5]. This Markov model is further extended in [10] has a primary protection RC . The component B has a primary
for power transformer protection. Markov chains, representing protection RB , which is a backup relay for the component under
redundant protective systems or considering economic aspects study A. This assumption is schematically depicted in Fig. 1.
are also available in [11] and [12], respectively. In [13], a 13-state In order to devise a stochastic Markov model for the reliabil-
Markov model with not perfectly reliable backup relay operation ity assessment of the component A, the following assumptions
was introduced. In [9], a detailed 19-state reliability diagram have been made: (1) while the component is down, its associ-
for modern protection systems was presented. It addresses the ated protection system cannot fail, (2) a repair process makes
problem of relay hardware/software and ancillary equipment the component A as good as new, (3) a backup relay iso-
failures as well as human errors. Moreover, this sophisticated lates both its primary and backup components. Based on these
example takes repair actions, routine inspections effectiveness, assumptions, a six-state Markov model, associated with the re-
level of reliance on self-checking, local backup misoperation liability of the component A is developed in this section. The
and stuck breakers into consideration. proposed model (Fig. 2) is a stochastic chain, where protec-
While the mathematical models mentioned above are very tion system failures are categorized into two modes: undesired
comprehensive, their application in power system reliability tripping and failure to operate, which address the systems
studies is constrained, because of lack of data required to de- security and dependability issues, respectively.
558 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 32, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2017

A. Detailed Markov Model Description

If all components A, B, C and their associated protec-
tions RA , RB , RC are healthy, the model resides in state 0.
The component A and its primary relay spend most of the
time in state 0. If a failure occurs in C, while RC is not
healthy, its backup protection, RA , isolates both the compo-
nents A and C. This situation is represented by the state Fig. 3. Simplified model of the power component A.
1H, where H stands for harmonics; it means that a relay may
transit to a particular state, because of the harmonics presence in
power system. In this context, harmonic-polluted fault currents
may cause the loss of coordination between RA and RC , and
as a result, the component A is isolated due to the protec-
tion unavailability of RC . It should be notified that the above
mentioned transition could also occur in nonharmonic-polluted
environments. We will address this fact and discuss the mod-
eling procedure of the harmonics contribution to this kind of Fig. 4. Simplified model of the protection system.
failures in Section III.
If a failure occurs in A, based on the status of RA (the pro-
tection of the component A), it may transfer to either state 21 a power system automation i.e., Intelligent Electronic Device
or state 22H. In this regard, if RA is healthy, it will isolate the (IED). Through merging states 3H, 22H and 23, it is
component A and a transition occurs to state 21. Otherwise, possible to calculate the probability of protection system failure
the model will transfer to state 22H. In this case, the protection due to lack of security and protection unavailability. States 1H
system has failed to operate when required and as a result, this and 21; however, represent the relays (RA ) correct operation
state can be classified under abnormal unavailability [14]. Once and involve calculation of protection dependability and backup
such failures occur in RA , the backup protection, RB , isolates trip probability for the adjacent transmission line. These states
A, as well as the component B, and the transition is to state could be merged into a single state, representing protection sys-
23 due to RA failure to operate or delayed tripping. Once the tem correct operation. The resultant simplified model is shown
component A is isolated, repair (or replacement) process is in Fig. 4.
conducted and the model transfers back to state 0.
State 3H corresponds to the undesired tripping of RA and III. MATHEMATICAL MODEL REPRESENTATION
the switching action is required in order to put the components A Markov model can be described by an algebraic system of
A and C back into service. In other words, in this state the ordinary linear equations:
component A is healthy, but has been isolated due to undesired
tripping of RA . PT = 0 (1)
Depending on the subject of the reliability analysis, the model where P is a row vector of the steady-state probabilities, dimen-
depicted in Fig. 2 can be simplified in different ways. Two such sion n, whose ith element, Pi , is the probability of state i; T is
simplifications are discussed next. a n n transition rate matrix, in which off-diagonal elements
B. Power Component (A) Point of View are the failure and repair or switching rates that represent the
transitions between the system states, and the diagonal elements
In this approach, we concentrate on the protected component. are the transitions out of each state with negative sign; n is the
States 1H and 3H are merged, since these states are of the number of states [15].
same nature. Accordingly, a state is modeled in which the com- Equation (1) can be written on the basis of the frequency
ponent A is healthy, but out of service due to the primary balance approach:
protection malfunctions: either the failure to operate of RC or
n n
the undesired tripping of RA .
Pj j i Pi ij = 0. (2)
RA may be up or down when the component A is failed;
however, in either case, A will be ultimately switched out of j =1,j = i j =1,j = i

service. Hence, it is also possible to merge states 21, 22H Moreover, the sum of the state probabilities should be equal
and 23, and replace them with a new state 2H, to which to unity:
the model transfers, because of the component As own fault. n

Therefore, we obtain a simple three-state Markov chain, reflect- Pi = 1 (3)
ing the possible states of a protected object; e.g., transmission i=1
line. The simplified model is shown in Fig. 3.
Therefore, to solve for the missing steady-state probabilities,
(2) and (3) can be combined to give (4):
C. Primary Protection (RA ) Point of View
PT = V (4)
Changing the perspective toward the protection system
reliability gives the chance to derive a simplified model for where V is a row vector with the first element set to 1.
JEDRZEJCZAK et al.: RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT OF PROTECTIVE RELAYS IN HARMONIC-POLLUTED POWER SYSTEMS 559

Having a reliability model for protective devices, operating 2) Calculate the fault current and extract the corresponding
in harmonic-polluted environment (Fig. 2), (4) takes the form: harmonic spectrum.
T T 3) For each case, measure the tripping times of RA , RB ,
P0 1 1 21 22 0 3 1 and RC through laboratory tests or simulations. Actual
P1H 1 1 0 0 0 0
0 settings of the relays must be used in tests or simulations.
P21 1 0 21 0 0 0
= 0 4) Check, whether the coordination between protective re-
P22H 1 0 0 0
22 22 0 lays is lost or not. By doing so, the faults that result in the
P23 1 0 0 0 23 0 0 protection system malfunction are identified and know-
P3H 1 0 0 0 0 3 0 ing the occurrence rate of each fault, the harmonic-related
(5) failure rates of the model can be obtained.
The goal is to find the steady-state probabilities in (5), in terms The switching rates used in the proposed model are equal to
of transition rates. the reciprocal of the mean time to switch and the repair rates
For a process to be represented by a Markov chain, it needs are equal to the reciprocal of the mean time to repair. Moreover,
to be stationary. In other words, the transition rates between dif- in Fig. 2 there is no difference between the repair processes
ferent states remain constant throughout the study period [15], in states 21 and 23; hence, the associated repair times are
[16]. Modeling a stochastic process by a stationary Markov likely to be equal. On the other hand, the switching rates 1
chain requires that the state residence times follow an expo- and 3 may have different values. The reason for this is that
nential distribution. The model uses a constant transition rate in state 3H, only the component A has been switched out
between states i and j, which is defined by [15]: of service, while in state 1H some components, as well as the
component A are isolated and the respective switching process
Nij
ij = (6) may be somewhat different. Since 1 accounts for the switch-
Ti
ing rates of all components for which RA acts as a backup
where, ij is the transition rate (in occurrences per year), Nij is (here the set of components is called C), all such switching
the number of observed transitions from state i to state j, and Ti times must have their own contributions to the obtained value
is the duration of state i (in years), calculated during the whole and their average value is thus a reasonable approximation. The
period of study. reliability index 22 represents the switching of RB and corre-
When harmonics are present in the system and the relays sponds to the time interval between a fault occurrence and the
algorithm or its front-end circuit is somehow prone to these high isolation of A , to restore RB . This switching rate has a large
frequency components, failure rates of the protected equipment value, compared to other model transition rates, because the time
A are modified as follows: needed for a backup protection to operate is usually measured in
1 = 01 + H
1 (7) seconds.
In the following section, an example, based on data from
22 = 022 + H
22 (8) Canadian substation is presented, to prove applicability and
usefulness of Markov models for relay reliability studies.
3 = 03 + H
3 (9)
where, 0i denotes the failure rate in harmonic-free conditions
and H i stands for the increment of failure rate due to harmonic-
IV. RELAY RELIABILITY MODEL EXAMPLE
polluted environment. It should be notified that any transition
rate including the harmonic-related failure rates in the proposed The data used in the following calculations were obtained
model could be calculated from (7)(9). However, the data col- from harmonic-free outage statistics, collected between 1998
lection approach may be unusable due to lack of sufficient his- and 2003. Based on these values, the specific failure rates are
torical data, and it is more practical to estimate these values computed (Tables I and II).
based on simulations. The Reliability Modeling Tool (RMT) [17] was used to de-
It is needless to say, the harmonic contribution rates cannot rive failure statistics from the historical data. It calculates var-
be determined without knowing the exact configuration of the ious reliability indices for components, station and protection
system, harmonic spectrum of voltage and current waveforms, equipment.
rate and amount of harmonics injected in the system throughout The failure rates obtained from the RMT are separated into
the year, and relays frequency response characteristics. In this three different categories:
context, the following steps may be helpful for estimation of the 1) Line Forced Failure Ratethe transition between quies-
associated transition rates: cent (0) and dependability (21) states.
1) Identify all the possible faults which may occur in the 2) Protection Equipment Failure Ratethe transition be-
primary protection zone of RA and RC . This set of faults tween the quiescent (0) and the protection unavailability
should include different fault types such as single phase to (22H) or the security (3H) states.
ground, phase to phase, phase to phase to ground and so 3) Line Protection Related Failure Ratethe transition be-
on, as well as different operating conditions of the power tween the quiescent (0) and (1H) states, i.e., backup
system. operation of RA .
560 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 32, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2017

TABLE I
LINE FORCED FRS AND SWITCHING/REPAIR TIMES

Line Forced FR [f/y] Time [min]

Voltage [kV]} Permanent Temporary Transient Switching Repair

115 0.753022 0.990713 2.37891 4.97984 304.987

230 0.448001 0.231273 0.900365 7.08805 308.237
500 0.137502 0.0951936 0.142790 8.83333 329.692
ALL 0.516251 0.488660 1.33383 5.58098 307.298

TABLE II
PROTECTION EQUIPMENT FRS AND LINE PROTECTION RELATED FRS

Voltage [kV] Protection Equipment FR [f/y] Line Protection Related FR [f/y]

115 0.157830 0.301608

230 0.180705 0.429092
500 0.506106 0.0951936
ALL 0.244150 0.336906 Fig. 5. Probability of protection failure (PoPF) as a function of harmonic
transition rate change (HTRC).

The switching and repair rates are calculated from (10) and relays. Another one, with reference to harmonic-polluted envi-
(11), respectively: ronment, is the relays susceptibility to harmonic contents which
1 also affects 2 .
i = Switching Tim e [m in]
(10) In this paper, we have assumed that harmonic production
60 m in 8760/y
pattern of nonlinear loads is stationary and does not change
1 over time. This is a reasonable assumption and does not pose
j = Repair Tim e [m in]
(11)
serious limitations on the applicability of the proposed model.
60 m in 8760/y
Therefore, we can assume that the harmonic-related failures of
where i and j denote a particular states of the model. the protective relays are also stationary and therefore they can
The following P vector values are obtained from (5) using be analyzed using stochastic Markov chains. If this criterion
the transition rates from the 115 kV substation (Tables I, II): is not met, the basic Markov modeling approach would not
Once the steady-state probabilities of the detailed Markov be applicable anymore and alternative methods appropriate for
model are found, it is possible to calculate the simplified model systems with nonexponential distributions should be employed
transition rates associated with a protected object (Fig. 3). in this regard [18].
P1H3H = P1H + P3H = 2.9169 106 (12) The sensitivity approach was chosen for the analysis of the
effects of harmonics (represented by contribution rates: H 22 ,
P2H = P21 +P22H + P23 = 2.4791 103 (13) H3 ) on the protection system performance. Based on the data
from harmonic-free outage statistics (Tables I and II), the reli-
Frequency balance equations yield:
ability indices of the Markov model (Fig. 2) were calculated in
P1H3H 1 = P1H 1 + P3H 3 (14) MATLAB, using the system of linear equations (5).
The harmonic transition rates (H H
22 , 3 ) were incrementally
P0 1 = P0 1 + P 0 3 (15)
changed from zero to ten times the value of the correspond-
P2H 2 = P21 21 + P23 23 (16) ing ordinary transition rates: 022 , 03 and added, in each itera-
tion, to the harmonic-free
0indices,
 associated with the protection
P0 2 = P0 21 + P0 22 (17)
equipment

 failure rate 22 and line protection related failure
rate 03 . The steady-state probabilities for each HV system
The associated transition rates are obtained from (18) to (21) were calculated. Finally, having reliability indices of the gen-
as follows: eral Markov chain, used in the transition rate matrix of (5),
P1H 1 + P3H 3 the steady-state probabilities and transition rates of the simpli-
1 = = 1.5712105 (18)
P1H3H fied protection model were computed to be used in small area
reliability studies.
13 = 1 + 3 = 4.5944101 (19)
The protection failure probability (PoPF)sum of a relays
P21 21 + P23 23 unreadiness and security probabilitiesas a function of har-
2 = = 1.7223103 (20)
P2H monic transition rate change (HTRC) is depicted in Fig. 5.
Fig. 5 shows that harmonic pollution linearly affects the re-
2 = 21 + 22 = 4.2805 (21)
lays reliability. The probability of protection failure increases
The value of 13 depends on several factors and one of them with higher station voltages. Although, the percentage of HTRC
is the amount of margin time, used for coordinating different was the same for all the studied systems, the most affected is the
JEDRZEJCZAK et al.: RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT OF PROTECTIVE RELAYS IN HARMONIC-POLLUTED POWER SYSTEMS
TABLE III
DETAILED MARKOV MODEL STEADY-STATE PROBABILITIES IN
HARMONIC-FREE ENVIRONMENT
P0 P 1H P 21 P 22H P 23 P 3H
99.75200% 0.00015% 0.23863% 0.00015% 0.00914% 0.00014%
PoPF of 500 kV. It is 3.19 and 1.74 times greater than the proba-
bilities in 115 kV and 230 kV systems, respectively. Therefore,
the higher the system voltage, the more precaution is needed in
designing protective relays in terms of harmonic contents, since
here, the rate of change of the protection failure probability is
higher.
The following P vector values were obtained from the de-
tailed Markov model, operating in a harmonic-polluted environ-
ment. The mid-range reliability indices (at 54% of HTRC) for
the 115 kV substation were chosen from the sensitivity analysis
and applied to the calculations of the steady-state probabilities.
The steady-state probabilities of the relays quiescent (P0 )
and dependability (P21 ) states are decreased by 0.094% and
0.00023%, respectively, compared to the Markov model operat-
ing in harmonic-free environment (Table III). Furthermore, the
probability of the primary protection unreadiness with success-
ful backup operation (P22H + P23 ) is increased by 0.09275%.
Similarly, the probability of protection maltrip operation (P3H )
rose by 0.00142%. Hence, it is evident that harmonic contents
affect both the states associated with correct (dependability, qui-
escence), and incorrect operation (unreadiness, maltrip). Finally,
the line primary protection related failure probability (P1H ) re-
mained unchained, since the harmonic content is 0 and RA
operation does not affect 21.
Taking into account the aforementioned harmonic contribu-
tions, the failure rates of the simplified Markov model for the
analyzed 115 kV transmission systems are calculated:
f independent study, where a single outage event or overlapping
32223 = 2.02780 (22) of two or three independent outages, causing system interrup-
y
f analysis. The cut set method is a convenient tool for complex
121 = 5.10119 (23)
y network analysis. A cut set is basically a group of components,
where 32223 and 121 are associated with security (3H)
and dependability (21), respectively.
These rates and the probabilities from Table IV can now be
used for small-area reliability studies in which the relays are
modeled with the Markov chain, as depicted in Fig. 3.
If, on the other hand, it is imperative to calculate the protection
system failure probability, state 3H22H23 is employed.
P3H22H23 = P3H + P22H + P23 = 0.00103602 (24)
For the protection system operating in harmonic-free envi-
ronment this probability is equal to 0.0000942730.
The probability of the outage states with correct protection
operation is:
P1H21 = P1H + P21 = 0.00238553 (25)
561
TABLE IV
DETAILED MARKOV MODEL STEADY-STATE PROBABILITIES IN
HARMONIC-POLLUTED ENVIRONMENT
P0 P 1H P 21 P 22H P 23 P 3H
99.65800% 0.00015% 0.23840% 0.00164% 0.10040% 0.00157%
The probability P1H21 of the model, which does not take
harmonics into consideration is 0.00238780.
The transition rates from Fig. 4 are calculated as follows:
P3H 3 + P22H 22 + P23 23
32223 =
P3H22H23
sw + rep
= 6.5314103 (26)
y
P1H 1 + P21 21 sw + rep
121 = = 1.7882103 (27)
P1H21 y
V. SMALL-AREA RELIABILITY STUDIES
The calculated failure rates and probabilities are used as input
data for programs, such as AREP (Area Reliability Evaluation
Program), [19], to compute reliability indices of a selected group
of customers, supplied by a series of power sources. The com-
parative analysis of the two types of protection, carried out in
Section IV, is useful in assessing the impact of harmonic signals
on the operation of small-area industrial systems. Having both
the reliability indices of all power system components, as shown
later in this section, and the probabilities of the protection sys-
tem failure in harmonic-free and -polluted environments, it is
feasible to calculate the probability of power delivery failure.
The method of minimal cuts is used to evaluate the reliability
of supply from the power sources to the selected customers, re-
ferred to as the delivery points or sinks. This is the so-called
tion, is not further combined with other outage events in the
whose failure results in system failure or loss of continuity be-
tween the input and the output of the reliability system under
study. A network with a few hundred components may have bil-
lion cut sets. It has been observed that there is a minimal set of
components where, if any basic event is removed from the set,
the remaining events do not constitute a cut set anymore [18].
This technique, although it is a rough estimate, gives very accu-
rate results for medium-sized system studies, especially when
used together with the Markov assumptions [19].
In order to conduct the area reliability studies, the pattern of
the power flow from the sources to the delivery points has to be
engineered. The direction of power flow needs to be assigned to
every network connection, defining either one- or bidirectional
components. A program user may specify switching zones, com-
ponent initial states (i.e., normally open/closed circuit breakers)
and study component outages.
562 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 32, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2017

TABLE V
FEEDER BUS FAILURE RATES AND ASSOCIATED TIMES

SUPPLY/FEEDER BUS Weather Conditions Times

Failure Rates Normal Adverse Switching [h] 0.083

Permanent [1/year] 0.009 0.122 Restoration [h] 0.143
Temporary [1/year] 0.04 1.003 Reclosure [h] 0
Transient [1/year] 0 0 Repair [h] 9.4
Accelerated Repair [h] 0

TABLE VI
Fig. 6. Typical small system with the protection reliability model. BUSBAR FAILURE RATES AND ASSOCIATED TIMES

BUSBAR Weather Conditions Times

A delivery point is interrupted, if and only if all the electrical Failure Rates Normal Adverse Switching [h] 0
connections between this point and all source points are inter- Permanent [1/year] 0.062 6.768 Restoration [h] 0.107
Temporary [1/year] 0.062 39.472 Reclosure [h] 0.00417
rupted. There are four types of system failures with different out- Transient [1/year] 0.08 91.328 Repair [h] 11.2
age duration: permanentif restoration of a delivery point can Accelerated Repair [h] 0
only happen after the repair of a faulted component; switching
if isolation of the faulted component restores the system correct
TABLE VII
operation; and temporary or transientif restoration occurs via JUNCTION BUS FAILURE RATES AND ASSOCIATED TIMES
manual or automatic reclosure, respectively.
When a permanent system failure is identified, attempts are JUNCTION BUS Weather Conditions Times
made to restore the system by closing the normally open break-
ers one by one in a specified order. If none of the closings are Failure Rates Normal Adverse Switching [h] 0.13
Permanent [1/year] 0.011 0.402 Restoration [h] 0
successful in restoring the system, the classification of the failure Temporary [1/year] 0 0 Reclosure [h] 0
remains as permanent. If at least one closing restores the system, Transient [1/year] 0 0 Repair [h] 13.4
then the failure is classified as switching, and frequency/duration Accelerated Repair [h] 0

indices are calculated, accordingly. Temporary and transient out-

ages occur, when isolation of the outaged component restores the TABLE VIII
supply to the affected delivery points. Transient outages corre- DISTRIBUTION TRANSFORMER FAILURE RATES AND ASSOCIATED TIMES
spond to the automatic switching operation, whereas temporary
interruptions are the result of manual switching. TRANSFORMER Weather Conditions Times
Often, system equipment such as a power supply or feeder
Failure Rates Normal Adverse Switching [h] 0.4
transformers are taken out of service for preventive mainte- Permanent [1/year] 0.019 0.019 Restoration [h] 0.338
nance. These forced manual outages are treated as maintenance, Temporary [1/year] 0.029 0.029 Reclosure [h] 0.00417
rather than faults. Therefore, different statistics can be obtained Transient [1/year] 0 0 Repair [h] 27.2
Accelerated Repair [h] 0
from the analysis of systems with and without maintenance
outages (MO).
The reliability of the protection system computed with the
process discussed in the previous sections is applied to the anal- 2) Various durations: switching, restoration, reclosure, re-
ysis of a typical small system in the Toronto area (Fig. 6). pair and accelerated repair times. The available types of
This example represents a double bus bar system powered by outages are the same for all components.
four sources with associated high voltage breakers. It has eight Breakers, however, have all aforementioned reliability indices
feeders with medium voltage breakers. Each breaker has a fail- plus breaker specific values such as the associated protection
ure probability component associated with the protection system logic failure probabilities for normally closed and open elements
logic. Assuming a protection unit is represented by the Markov and additional switching time for the latter.
chain from Fig. 4, the breaker protection logic failure probabil- Moreover, each component has a protection zone defined
ity is equal to 0.00103602 for the system securing the 115 kV either by nearest breakers (default option) or it can be user-
transmission line with harmonic injections and 0.0000942730 specified. Additionally, a particular component can be self-
for the system operating in harmonic-free conditions. Here, one switched during a fault, while no other component is isolated,
MV feeder is modelled as a sink. or it can be switched out with other components (a nonstandard
Components such as sources, lines, junctions and transform- switching zone).
ers, constituting the system, have eight reliability parameters: In this study all the components are self-switched and their
1) Failure rates which are defined for either normal or/and ad- protection zones are defined by the nearest breakers. Sup-
verse weather conditions: permanent, temporary or tran- ply lines, busbars, feeders and junctions have different failure
sient. rates for normal and adverse weather conditions. Tables VVIII
JEDRZEJCZAK et al.: RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT OF PROTECTIVE RELAYS IN HARMONIC-POLLUTED POWER SYSTEMS 563

TABLE IX TABLE X
SUPPLY AND FEEDER BREAKER ASSOCIATED TIMES FALSE TRIP DATA FOR SELECTED COMPONENTS OF THE SMALL SYSTEM

SUPPLY BREAKER Times FEEDER BREAKER Times Components Temporary FR Transient FR BREAKERS

Switching [h] 0.5 Switching [h] 1 9, 10 0.125/0.845 0.037/0.483

Restoration [h] 0.19 Restoration [h] 0.19 9 0.058/0.242 0.016/0.181 2, 4, 12, 14
Reclosure [h] 0.00417 Reclosure [h] 0.00417 10 0.058/0.242 0.016/0.181 5, 7, 15, 17
Repair [h] 249.6 Repair [h] 43.2 51, 53 0.011/0.061 0/0
Accelerated Repair [h] 0 Accelerated Repair [h] 0 2, 4, 5, 7, 12, 14, 15, 17 0.0057/0.0057 0/0
50, 52, 54 0.0005/0.0005 0/0
49, 55 0.038/0.244 0.011/0.122
49 0.064/0.767 0.054/0.767 50
55 0.064/0.767 0.054/0.767 57
present the values used in the study, based on the historical
experience for this location.
In this example, the two different circuit breakers are utilized TABLE XI
COMMON MODE FALSE TRIP INDICES FOR THE COMPONENT 9 AND 10
for source and feeder lines. Their permanent failure rates are
0.0074 1/year and 0.0026 1/year, respectively. Various times
Component Temporary FR Transient FR
associated with breakers are summarized in Table IX.
The failure probability of the supply and feeder breakers is 9, 10 0/10.75 0/9.82
0.00103602 computed from (24) and 0.006 (by default). Nor-
mally open breaker failure probabilities are set to 0.02 for supply
TABLE XII
and 0.002 for feeder circuit breakers, respectively. MAINTENANCE EVENTS FOR SELECTED COMPONENTS OF THE SMALL SYSTEM
The topology with one sink at the bottom of the feeder bus 51
(Fig. 6) is examined. The PoPF, as a measure of the reliability of Components Maintenance Rate Avg. Main. Time [h]
the protection system, obtained from the Markov analysis with
and without the inclusion of harmonics, is utilized in the supply 9, 10 40 12.34
49, 55 12.83 9.57
breaker parameters. Weather cycles, to which all the system 2, 4, 5, 7, 12, 14, 15, 17 2.2 25.38
components are exposed, are 170.9 (normal) and 1.88 (adverse) 50, 52, 54 1.95 12.89
days. These values specify the frequency of the corresponding 51, 53 1.4 8.6
3, 6, 13, 16 10.77 12.21
FRs in the simulation.
Additionally, the common mode failures of the line 9
TABLE XIII
and 10 of Fig. 6 are taken into consideration. These rep- FINAL SUMMARY OF RELIABILITY INFORMATION FOR THE SYSTEM WITH 1
resent events, where the two components are faulted simul- SINK AND POPF WITH THE INCLUSION OF HARMONICS
taneously due to the same cause. Here, the lines permanent
FRs for normal and adverse weather conditions are {0.0144/ Failure type Number Frequency Duration [h] Prob. of sys. MTTF
3.44} [1/year], temporary {0/17.2} [1/year] and transient of failures [1/year] failure [h/year] [years]

FRs {0/15.712} [1/year]. Permanent 660.0 0.0636050 6.303970 0.40100 15.720

Furthermore, the general false trip data (Table X), the com- A: Temporary 501.0 0.242253 0.07316000 0.017720 4.1300
B: Switching 621.0 0.0192710 0.9987800 0.019250 51.890
mon mode false trip indices for the components 9 and 10
Subtotal: A+B 1122 0.261524 0.1413600 0.036970 3.8200
(Table XI), and the maintenance events (Table XII) have been Transient 110.0 0.177412 0.004170000 0.00073980 5.6400
added for the selected groups of components used in the small- Totals 1892 0.502541 0.8729820 0.43871 1.9900
area topology. Some of the breakers are tripped during false Final summary of reliability informationWithout maintenance
trips of the components 9, 10, 49, and 55.
Permanent 592.0 0.0231620 6.918930 0.16030 43.170
The total probability of system failure without maintenance A: Temporary 41.00 0.0291310 0.1657300 0.0048280 34.330
outages (MO) equals 0.43534 h/year and the Mean Time to B: Switching 288.0 0.00655200 0.3806400 0.0024940 152.63
Failure (MTTF) is 2 years (number of failures is 1 892). For Subtotal: A+B 329.0 0.0356820 0.2051900 0.0073220 28.030
Transient 12.00 0.0154780 0.004170000 0.000064550 64.610
the system with maintenance, these values are 0.60177 h/year Totals 933.0 0.0743230 2.256180 0.16769 13.450
and 1.74 years, respectively. In the latter case, the number of Final Totals 2825 0.576865 1.051193 0.60640 1.7300
simulated failures is 2 825. Final summary of reliability informationWith maintenance
The inclusion of harmonics in the Markov model for pro-
tection systems increases the total probability of system failure
without MO from 0.43534 h/year to 0.43871 h/year, and with
summary of data for the system operating in harmonic-polluted
MO from 0.60177 h/year to 0.60640 h/year. The harmonics de-
environment is shown in Table XIII.
crease MTTF in the systems with MO from 2 years to 1.99
years, and without MO from 1.74 years to 1.73 years.
VI. CONCLUSION
The reliability assessment revealed that, if the harmonic com-
ponents affect the dependability of a protective device, through The detailed, general Markov model along with its simplified
the security and unreadiness probabilities, the power delivery versions is introduced in the paper. It represents dependability
service is also vulnerable to those signals distortions. The final and security of a relaying system with backup operation for high
564
voltage transmission lines. The frequency balance approach is
used to calculate probabilities of the protection maloperation.
The detailed Markov model for power system automation can
be further simplified, depending on the subject of the reliabil-
ity analysis. The ultimate result is either the protection system
model or the protected object chain. Many of the transition rates
of the proposed Markov model depend on other components of
the system and their associated protection systems. Thus, if we
have transition rates of different system elements, their models
can be linked together to form a composite system model.
The studies reported in this paper actualize development of
small-area reliability models with representation of operation of
protective system devices, taking into account polluted signals
received by relays. The main goal was to combine experimental
studies on relay performance with the area and system reliability
analysis. Therefore, a new paradigm in reliability analysis was
examined by combining the performance of protection equip-
ment subjected to polluted signals and small-area reliability
concepts into a single application. This is a conceptual leap in
the traditional wisdom where each aspect of system operation
is analyzed separately.
An important conclusion from the experimental, numerical
analysis is that the probability of a protection failure increases
with station voltages. The second remark is that harmonic contri-
butions directly affect related steady-state probabilities, includ-
ing a quiescent state. As shown in Section V, this is transferred
to the reliability indices computed for the small-area, where the
system failure probability is increased by 0.5% and the MTTF
is decreased by 0.01 years.
The effects of harmonics on the performance of the protection
system were obtained from simulations using speculative data.
Therefore, they cannot be treated as expected general results to
be found in harmonic-polluted power systems due to distributed
generations. However, our studies have shown that the probabil-
ities of the system failure are affected by the harmonic-polluted
signals.
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