Adaptive Relaying
A. G.Phadke' and S.H.Horowitz2
Attending national o r international forums on
protection and control in recent years, one must be
impressed with the fact that adaptive relaying is a
recurring topic on every agenda. It is not only ubiqui-
tous, it is controversial. Is adaptive relaying really a
r e v o l u t i o n a r y c o n c e p t n e v e r a t t e m p t e d o r ac-
complished before or is it simply the familiar, accepted
and expected versatility of existing protection and
control? Is the attention it is now receiving simply due
t o its appearance in computer based devices and
sporting a glamorous label to go along with its new look
or is there a fundamental protection philosophy in the
making? Is adaptive relaying safe? Is it beneficial?
What is adaptive relaying?
What Is Adaptive Relaying?
Adaptive relaying accepts that relays which protect
a power network may need to change their charac-
teristics to suit the prevailing power system condi-
tions. Normally, a protective system responds t o faults
or abnormal events in a fixed predetermined manner.
This predetermined manner, embodied in the charac-
teristics of the relays, is based upon certain assump-
tions made about the power system. Thus, one may
have assumed a level of load current which cannot be
exceeded at the place where the relay is located. For
the moment one of the characteristics of t h e relay-its
pickup setting-may thus be defined to lie above the
maximum load current. However, in time, if this load
current level is exceeded by the actual load, then the
pickup setting of the relay is inappropriate, and the
relay may misoperate during heavy loading conditions.
Examples of this kind are fairly common in modern
power system operations, and will be discussed fur-
ther. One could generalize by saying that it is not
possible to foresee all possible operating states of the
power system in a practical power network and conse-
quently it is riot possible to ensure that all relay set-
tings will remain appropriate as the power system
evolves in time.
Even if one could foresee all contingencies and
define boundaries of required performance for a relay,
one must often make an inferior choice for the relay
setting in order to embrace these boundaries. It is
often necessary to make a setting which covers a great
many conditions, and consequently, is not the best for
the riorrrial conditions which the relay would face most
' Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Consulting Engineer- Columbus, Ohio
0895-0156/90/0700-0047$1 00 0 1990 IEEE
. -
Authorized licensed use limited to: G H Patel College of Eng & Technology. Downloaded on November 19, 2009 at 01:02 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
of the time. To meet all possible contingencies, the
relay setting may be made so insensitive that it is not
sensitive enough t o cover adequately the protection of
any one state of the power system. These ideas force
us to conclude that, under certain conditions, and with
appropriate safeguards, it may be desirable to make
relays adapt to changing conditions. Of course, not all
features of all relays must be adaptive. Adaptive ele-
ments are present in many of our existing elect-
romechanical and solid-state relays. For instance, by
adjusting its speed of operations automatically to its
operating current, an induction disc, time-delay, over-
current relay is adapting to changing fault locations.
Perhaps in a less obvious fashion, adaptive relaying
and control can be seen in the complex circuitry
associated with many circuit breaker bypass schemes.
Current transformer and tripping circuits are recon-
figured using auxiliary switches to make the measuring
and tripping circuits compatible at each stage of the
switching procedure. Such examples support the view
that we have, indeed, been enjoying adaptive protec-
tion and control, but they d o not encompass t h e
present excitement about the full range of possibilities
of adaptive relaying. Existing practices represent per-
manent provisions for wellconsidered scenarios or
hard-wired solutions to a variety (albeit limited in num-
ber) of operating states of the power system.
To describe completely the present concept of
adaptive relaying, it is necessary t o include t h e
possibility that the protection systems will permit
making automatic changes to be made within the
protection system itself as the power system under-
goes normal and abnormal changes during its course
of operation. With this concept of adaptive relaying,
therefore, it is not necessary to anticipate all contin-
gencies for which the relaying must perform correctly,
nor is it necessary to accept compromises in setting
relays. Thus, adaptive protection is CI protection
philosophy which permits and seeks to make adjust-
ments in various protection functions automatically in
order to make them more attuned to prevailing power
system conditions. Other definitions of adaptive relay-
ing will be found in the technical literature, but their
sense is contained in the above defintion.
Computer Relaying and Adaptive Relaying
The adaptive relaying philosophy can be made fully
effective only with digital computer based relays.
These relays, which are becoming more common on
many power systems, contain two important features
July 1.990 47
---
 that are vital to the adaptive relaying concept: their
functions are determined through software, and they
have a communication capability which can be used to
alter the software in response to higher level super-
visory software, or under commands from a remote
control center. It is, of course necessary to recognize
that any relay or communication system may fail at
some time, and appropriate fallback positions and
safety checks must be built into the relays.
Why Adaptive Relaying?
Before describing some adaptive relaying pos-
sibilities, we should examine the reasons why the con-
cept is attracting such attention from the point of view
of modern power system practices. As we know, the
power industry is undergoing fundamental changes
that seriously affect its ability t o perform its function
properly. Economic and environmental issues and con-
cerns are creating difficulties in obtaining transmission
right-of-way or generation siting and are causing defer-
rals of new power plants or transmission lines. The
effect of this is t o decrease significantly the margins
for loading and stability, and to force operation of the
power systems in ways and at levels that may not have
been considered in its original plans. Consequently,
criteria for traditional protection and control perfor-
mance are being challenged. Operating margins, relay
applications and settings and tripping or reclosing
schemes that were commonplace are no longer accept-
able. Unusual circumstances can encroach on all of the
relaying conservatism, and render the transmission
system vulnerable to prolonged or cascading outages.
Is Adaptive Relaying Safe?
Opposition to adaptive relaying is centered on of
reliability. Based on years of conservatism, there is an
understandable reluctance on the part of relay en-
gineers to contemplate reducing their control over the
fundamental mechanism of system protection. Tradi-
tionally, applications and settings have been the
province of a small group of experts entrusted with this
responsibility. If relays are allowed to change their
characteristics automatically, who is responsible for
assuring that the setting is appropriate? If many relays
change their settings, will they still coordinate with
each other? Will such systems trip when they should,
and refrain from tripping when they should not? In
other words, are adaptive relays reliable?
It is important at this point to remind the reader that
reliability a s defined by the IEEE Standard Dictionary
of Electrical and Electronic Terms (ANSIJEEE loo),
specifically pertaining t o power system protection,
encompasses two components: dependability and
security. Reliability denotes certainty o f correct opera-
tion with assurance against incorrect operation from all
extraneous causes. Dependability is that facet o f
48 IEEE ComputerApplications in Power
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reliability that relates to the degree that the relay or relay
system will operate correctly. Security is that facet o f
reliability that relates to the degree that a relay or relay
system will not operate incorrectly. Even the most vocal
advocates of adaptive relaying address the issue of
reliability and responsibility with much concern.
Adaptive proposals always include the possibility of
failure of the computational hardware, or software, or
the communication links. Checkbacks, safety checks,
fallback positions, and other reliability designs must
be an integral part of any adaptive relaying scheme.
With proper design, an adaptive relaying scheme can
be a s safe as any conventional relaying scheme and
provides a better match between the current state of
a power system and its protection system.
Some Examples of Adaptive Relaying
All relay settings are a compromise. In every phase
of the development of a systems protection, a balance
must be struck between economy and performance,
dependability and security, complexity and simplicity,
speed and accuracy, credible vs. conceivable. The
objective of providing adaptive relay settings is t o
minimize compromises and allow relays to respond to
actual system conditions.
Load Effect
The ability to detect low grade faults is limited by
the necessity of not tripping during emergency load
conditions. On subtransmission and distribution sys-
tems, overcurrent relays must be set sufficiently above
load and below fault currents to allow for both depend-
ability and security. On higher voltage systems, dis-
tance relays must not encompass load impedance.
The traditional solution is t o add voltage restraint,
directionality, blinders, or t o compromise the setting.
In an adaptive environment, the load can be monitored
continuously and when a fault occurs, a s indicated by
a fault detector or a transient monitor, the load can be
removed from the fault calculation.
Cold Load Pickup
Similarly, when a distribution circuit has been out of
service for a long time, t h e inrush current upon
restoration is extremely high. This is known a s cold
load pickup and is caused by the loss of diversity of all
heating, cooling and other industrial and household
equipment. Usually, the instantaneous overcurrent
relays will trip on this cold load inrush. The relay will
then be blocked and the circuit allowed to reclose.
Assuming there actually is no fault, the circuit is re-
stored after the second attempt. If there is a fault, a
time-delay relay will trip, but after a period of heavy
fault current and low voltage. Since the cold-load
phenomenon follows a logical sequence of events of
outage plus time plus restoration, it is amenable to a
computer derived calculation and subsequent adjust-
ment of the instantaneous relay setting.
 End-of-line Protection
Instantaneous overcurrent relays and Zone 1 imped-
ance relays must not overreach into the next line sec-
tion. Overcurrent relays are therefore set above the
maximum current that will exist when all circuit
breakers are closed. Zone 1 relays are set at 80-90%of
the total line length. Time delay overcurrent relays Figure 1. Underreaching and overreaching protection with
and Zone 2 elements are used to cover the portion of overcurrent and impedance relays for 100% protection of
the line that is not covered by the instantaneous relays. transmission lines.
This is shown in Figure 1. For overcurrent relays, when
mismatch and variable power transformer tap set-
the remote breaker opens, the current will change. In
tings. Harmonic restraint is provided in the relay to
the non-adaptive case, the instantaneous relay must be
prevent its operation during magnetizing inrush or
set for the worst case currents, i.e, the system con-
current transformer saturation on external faults.
figuration that provides the maximum fault current.
Since all these variables may change depending on
For any other system configuration, the current may
system conditions, the transformer relay settings must
be less and the instananeous relay may not pick up.
assume some normal condition upon which pickup
With adaptive relaying, the system configuration can
and slope can be based. The effect is to reduce the
be communicated to all terminals and the resulting
fraction of the transformer winding being protected by
current change when the remote breaker opens can be
the relay. Since many of these variables are known
determined and the relay setting changed accordingly.
during the pre-fault state, adaptive relays can be ad-
In case of impedance relays, the opening of the breaker
justed without the need to accommodate any variable
at the remote end can be communicated to the relays,
parameters. The power transformer tap setting can be
and Zone1 setting of the relay can be made t o over-
determined by limit switches or by voltage measure-
reach the remote end. Since these are steady-state
ment. The current transformer ratios and calibration
system configuration changes, there is no need for a
curves can be stored in the relay and the pickup ad-
high-speed communication channel. The information
justed accordingly. Magnetizing inrush accompanies
can be sent off-line between stations or from a central
energizing of the transformer or recovery from a fault.
control point.
Both conditions can be determined by breaker posi-
Probably one of the best known relay problems is
tion, and voltage measurements and the harmonic
the multi-terminal transmission line and the com-
restraint provided to prevent relay operation from
promise settings associated with the presence or ab-
inrush can be enabled or disabled as required.
s e n c e of infeed. As discussed a b o v e , Zone-1
protection at A, B and C (see Figure 2) must always
underreach any remote terminal. It must always, there- Automatic Reclosing
fore, be set assuming no infeed from any of the other Adaptive control of automatic reclosing of circuit
lines. When infeed is present, i.e., all terminals con- breakers has attracted considerable attention recent-
tributing to the fault, the relay reach is further reduced. ly. Although it is not usually thought of in such terms,
This is not particularly desirable, but it is safe. Zone2 the use of dead-line or check-synchronizing in reclos-
protection must always overreach the complete line. ing relays is adaptive in nature. Also adaptive are the
In this case, the setting is determined with all infeeds interlocks which may be used with high speed reclos-
present. By continuously transmitting the system con- ing t o govern its use, e.g., to allow reclosing after single
figuration, i.e., circuit breaker status, to all terminals,
the presence or absence of infeed is known and the A B
relays set accordingly. This transmission is done
A
during steady-state operation and can b e accom- fault
modated by a slow speed channel. A more sophisti-
cated adaptive scheme makes use of a high speed
communication channel over which the actual ter-
minal currents are transmitted and the exact apparent
impedance seen by the relays can be calculated.

Transformer Protection ~

Setting the pickup and slope of the differential relays
for power transformer protection is another well
known compromise. The slope and pickup settings
must be selected to account for current transformer
Figure 2. A multi-terminal transmission line protection prob-
lem. Setting of the distance relay at A (similarly at B and C)
is complicated by the presence of the third terminal and its
contribution to the fault.
July 1990 49

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 phase faults, and block it after three phase faults. This
concept can be carried much further. Sympathy trips
are incorrect trips, usually at one end only, that occur
when some event other than an internal fault occurs.
Two common causes are loss of a blocking signal or
loss of directionality. With adaptive relays, t h e
presence (indeed the exact location) of a fault, is
known to a degree not possible with conventional
relays. Coupling this knowledge into the reclosing
circuits will allow an incorrectly tripped breaker to
reclose immediately without the usual delays required
for fault clearing and synchronizing interlocks. This
will significantly mitigate the effect of the incorrect
trip.
Another reclosing concept that has been recently
introduced in several forums is the idea of preventing
reclosing into any fault other than a line-to-ground or
line-to-line fault. This is done by closing one phase at
one end and measuring all of the resulting phase volt-
age on the unenergized phases. The impressed and
coupled voltages can then be analyzed, and reclosing
permitted or aborted as appropriate (see Figure 3).
Security and Dependability Balance
If we allow our imagination a little more freedom we
can, with adaptive protection and control, address a
far more fundamental issue: the conflict referred to
earlier between dependability and security of protec-
tion. This is a dilemma that must be resolved very
early in the engineering phase of an installation and
cannot be altered without much expense and time.
Dependability is generally achieved through redun-
dant relaying, and a degree of security is achieved
through a complex arrangement of interlocks. The
resulting protection system is invariably biased
toward greater dependability at t h e expense of
security or toward greater security at the expense of
dependability. For mature HV or EHV systems the bias
is generally toward dependability. This is because the
power system itself is redundant and it is vital that
faults be cleared with certainty-even if, on occasion,
there may be some false trips. On the other hand,
distribution circuits are not redundant, and here
security is the most important consideration. Even for
mature HV and EHV systems, however, during major
outages or upon restoration following a cascading
series of outages, one may wish to revise this philoso-
phy of protection which is biased towards depend-
ability at the expense of security. In conventional
relaying technology, this adaptive shift of balance be-
tween dependability and security would be almost
impossible to achieve. With computer relays, this type
of change can be accomplished with ease. Figure 4
shows a conceptual adaptive relaying scheme to ac-
complish such a change.
50 IEEE Computer Applications in Power
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Adaptive Control of Defective Relays
One of the earliest advantages recognized with com-
puter relays was their ability to monitor themselves
and to report their condition to a central location. This
ability has been taken several steps beyond this simple
approach. It was at first considered sufficient that a
defective relay should alarm and remove itself from
service. In this way no damage could result and
maintenance could be scheduled immediately. Since
there was always a redundant protection system, this
action appeared justified. As the digital relay and
adaptive schemes were studied in greater detail, other
solutions to the problem of defective relays became
attractive. For instance, the ability to share data is one
of the major advantages of computers connected in
s o m e c o m m u n i c a t i o n n e t w o r k . With t o d a y s
microprocessors it is possible to load all of the algo-
rithms in all of the microprocessors, activating, under
normal conditions, only the appropriate algorithm. If
a relay detects that it can no longer function properly,
a defective relay could transfer its function t o a healthy
relay, invoking the required algorithm and settings and,
using the shared data, maintain the integrity of the
protective system. Of course, if a relay can analyze its
own failure it can d o many other things t o continue
operating in a somewhat degraded, but acceptable,
manner. For instance, if Zone-1 element is defective,
Zone2 can now assume a new setting for an instanta-
neous trip and revert to its normal time delay for
backup. The reverse is also true: Zone-1 can extend its
setting to the Zone-2 reach and add a time delay. These
are software changes actuated either automatically or
by command from a central location.
Other Adaptive Relaying Possibilities
Several other adaptive relaying ideas will be found
in the literature. Among these is the idea of adaptive
out-of -step relaying. This falls under the general prob-
lem of trying to predict the instability of a power
swing as it is developing. With accurate synchronized
v
 Redundant Supervisory
Protection I Control
Protection #1
Protection #2
Trip
Protection #3
Figure 4. Adaptive adjustment of dependability and security
of protecitve relays. Depending upon the condition of the
power system, the redundant protection systems are used
in an AND, OR, TWO OUT OF THREE scheme to determine
whether a trip should be issued.
phasor measurements from several buses, the goal of
real-time instability prediction seems achievable. One
could then foresee t h e use of adaptive out-of-step
relays, which would change their functions from trip-
ping t o blocking, or vice-versa, a s the power swing
develops. Another idea is to make load-shedding
relays adapt to the condition where the frequency does
not deviate much from its nominal value, yet there is a
shortage (or excess) of generation in the system. This
may b e assessed by real-time measurements per-
formed at t h e system boundary, and computing a
dynamic Area Control Error. The interested reader is
referred to the literature for a fuller explanation of
these and other ideas on adaptive relaying.
Industry Activities
In addition t o the efforts of individual researchers in
adaptive relaying, several industry activities address
the issues raised by this subject. In 1985, the U.S.
Department of Energy authorized studies into the area
of Adaptive Protection. Results of these studies have
been published. In addition to the reports, several
technical papers were presented at IEEE and CIGRE
annual meetings, and at t h e Blacksburg Conferences on
Computer Relaying. Very lively discussions ensued,
which have been recorded in the proceedings of these
meetings. At present a CIGRk working group is being
formed to study and document the development of
adaptive relaying. The Power System Relaying Com-
mittee of IEEE also has formed a working group on this
subject, which is beginning its activity by issuing a
questionnaire to determine relay engineers' percep-
tion of what protection and control functions are can-
didates for adaptive treatment. Some references on
the subject article are listed in "For Further Reading".
Conclusions
In this article we have described the ambivalence
that exists about an emerging protective philosophy-
a philosophy that allows digital devices to monitor
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continuously a power network as well as t h e protective
relays, and to adjust the protection performance a s t h e
network conditions change. We have shown that t h e
concept is not totally new, but the advent of computer
relaying will permit applications not previously pos-
sible. Certainly, the changes will not occur suddenly.
c They will be introduced as computer relays justify
themselves, and will allow the engineering fraternity
time to adjust to the inherent advantages of this new
technology, and become familiar with t h e possibilities
it offers. We believe the relaying community will accept
this challenge, and embrace a protection philosophy
suited t o t h e new and demanding environment of the
electric power transmission networks.
For Further Reading
Study of Adaptive Transmission System Protection and Control:
A.G. Phadke, J.S.Thorp, S.H.Horowitz; ORNL/SUB/85-2205C, U S .
D e p a r t m e n t of Energy; available from Oak Ridge National
Laboratory.
Adaptive Power System Transmission Protection: G.D.-
Rockefeller, C.L. Wagner, J.R. Linders, K.L. Hicks, D.T.Rizy; O-
RNL/SUB/85-2201C; U.S. Department of Energy; available from Oak
Ridge National Laboratory.
Computer Relaying for Power Systems: (Book) A.G. Phadke, J.S.
Thorp; John Wiley and Sons, 1988.
Conference Proceedings of the Blacksburg Conferences on Com-
puter Relaying-1987 & 1989, available from Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Va.
Biographies
Arthur G. Phadke received his Ph.D. in electric
power engineering from the University of Wisconsin-
Madison and his M.S. from the Illinois Institute of Tech-
nology, Chicago. Dr. Phadke was a systems engineer
with Allis Chalmers, Consulting Engineer at American
Electric Power Service Corp., and is presently AEP
Professor of Electrical Engineering at Virginia Polytech-
nic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Va.
Dr. Phadke is a Fellow of IEEE, member of HKN, Tau
Beta Pi and Sigma Xi. In 1986 he was honored by t h e
Edison Electric Institute as Power Engineering Profes-
sor of the year, and in 1987 received t h e Distinguished
Service Award from t h e College of Engineering,
University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Stanley H. Horowitz received his BSEE from t h e City
College of New York. He was employed at American
Electric Power Service Corp for 38 years, retiring
recently a s Consulting Electrical Engineer. H e is
presently a private consultant in Columbus, Ohio.
Mr. Horowitz is a Fellow of IEEE. He was Chairman
of the Power System Relay Committee of IEEE, Interna-
tional Chairman of ClGRE Study Committee 34-Protec-
tion and Control, and member of t h e IEEE Executive
Board. He is author or co-author of numerous techni-
cal papers and was editor of t h e IEEE Press Book
Protective Reluying for Power Systems.
July 1990 51