Bus zone protection

The bus bar in electric power station and substations are

one of the most vital elements .

Although bus zone faults are rare, bus zone

protection is highly desirable in large and
important stations such as grid substations.
However, where local bus protection is provided
care should be taken by providing two
independent protective circuits both of which
must be satisfied before tripping can occur.

Bus bar protection needs special attention

because of the following reasons:

Fault level at busbar is very high.

Fault on busbar would result in
widespread supply interruption.
System stability is adversely affected
by fault in bus zone.

The desirable features of bus bar

protection:
High speed operation (less than 3 cycles)
Discrimination between fault in the
protected section and fault elsewhere.
Stability for external faults.
Freedom from unwanted operation .
No operation due to C.T. saturation or
power swings.

Various bus bar arrangement

Single bus bar arrangement.
Double bus bar arrangement.
One and half breaker arrangement.
Ring main arrangement.

Single bus bar arrangement

This is the simplest

arrangement
consisting of a single
set of bus bars for the
full length of the
switchyard. And to
this set of busbars all
the generators
,transformers and
feeders are connected
as illustrated by
figure.

Double bus double breaker arrangement

In a very important power stations two circuit

breakers are employed for each circuit.
In such arrangement bus couplers are not
required.
Switch over from one bus to the other can be
done when ever desired without interruption.
This arrangement is costly and maintenance
cost is also high.

One and a half breaker arrangement

One and a half breaker arrangement:

This is an improvement over double bus
double breaker arrangement.
This arrangement needs 3 CB s for 2
CKTs.
Any CB can be switched off for the
purpose of maintenance without the
provision of bypass.

Ring main arrangement

Ring main arrangement

This is an extension of the sectionalized
bus bar where the ends of the bus bar are
returned upon themselves to form a ring.
The arrangement provides greater
flexibility as each feeder is supplied by two
paths, so that the failure of the section
doesnt cause any interruption of the
supply.

Bus zone faults

According to statistical information majority of faults

are Single phase in nature.
The causes of the bus zone faults are
failure of support insulator due to aging, resulting in
earth fault.
flash over across support insulator caused by
prolonged and excessive over voltages.
Human error
foreign objects accidentally falling over busbars.
failure of circuit breaker under through fault
condition.

Types of protection
Back up protection
Frame earth protection
Differential protection
Directional comparision
Phase comparision protection.

1. Back Up Protection

In principle it is the simplest of all bus bar protection

methods.

Figure -a. back up protection.

In this type of protection, no separate bus protection is provided but distance

protection is provided for the feeders connected to the bus, it is possible to
cover the bus bar by time graded over current and earth fault protection of the
distance relays of nearby zones.

 The bus A is covered in the 2nd step of distance protection

of B. Thus when fault occurs on bus A the distance
protection B will operate.
The operating time of the 2nd step can be of the order of
0.4 sec. in such systems protection is slow and there can
be unwanted disconnections of all incoming circuits. Ref.
to fig. a. the local over current protection at station A
provides the bus zone protection to zone A.

The remote over current protection or impedence

protection at station B provides a back up protection
to Buszone A. In case protection A fails protection B
provides a back up protection.

2. Frame leakage protection

Fig b1

Fig b2

Fig. b Frame leakage scheme

Frame leakage protection

It is one of the most simple form of protection and

applicable to small sized metal clad switch gear.
This method consists of insulating the bus supporting
structure and its switch gear from ground, interconnecting
all the frame work circuit breaker tanks etc. and providing
a single ground connection through a CT that feeds an
over current relay.
An impedance is also connected in the earth connection to
limit the short circuit current during line to earth fault.
It is necessary to isolate the switch gear frame work from
lead cable sheaths ,cable boxes, and conduit fittings so that
when a leakage to the framework occurs the only path to
the leakage current should be through the connection from
the frame work to earth.

3. Differential protection of busbar

For the main bus-bars in the power stations due their importance in the
operating conditions it is required that the disconnection be without any
delay in case of faults.
Differential current protection without time delay is imperative to use.
The protection is based on simple circulating current principle that
under normal operating conditions or under external fault conditions,
the sum of the currents entering into the busbar will be equal to the sum
of the currents leaving the bus bar.
In case the sum of these currents is not zero ,it must be due to a short
circuit either a ground fault or phase to phase fault. Hence this
protection scheme is applicable to both types of faults i.e. phase to
phase faults as well ground fault.

Fig shows the application of differential circulating

current principle to a bus with four circuits.
The CT are inserted in each phase of the incoming and
outgoing feeders of the busbar and the secondaries are
connected in parallel.
The relay operating coil is connected across the pilot
wires in such a way that the summation current of
secondaries flows through it.
All the CTs must have same ratio.

Flow of current in the relay is the indication

of fault within the protected zone. And will
initiate opening of the breakers of each
generator and feeder.

Bus bar section can also be protected by

means of Voltage differential protection.

High-Impedance Differential
Protection