Minimise system forced outages and relay mal-operations resulting from setting design and application errors.

The protection system analysis/design undertaken by Applied Power Technologies uses sophisticated network and protection system models.

Network models employ detailed bus configurations to facilitate the accurate placement and summation of measurement transducers supplying protection devices.

Detailed relay specific models of the main and supervisory elements capture the manufacturer’s comparator equations, internal logical functions and actual tap settings. External scheme logic, typically composed of permissive/blocking signals and intertrips, completes the mathematical representation.

The analysis undertaken using these network and protection models reflect the exact behaviour of the relay in the field. The response in steady state or time domain simulations, informs you on how your installed protection will respond to disturbances.

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Learn more about how we implemented Network and Protection System Modelling.

Maintain secure and reliable protection system performance amid the challenges arising from today’s changing electrical grids.

Traditional approaches for ensuring sensitivity and coordination of protection elements lack the comprehensiveness and efficiency required to provide protection security on today’s complex and evolving power systems.

Wide Area Protect Reviews (WAPR) are emerging to address the demands currently faced by protection engineers. Assessments across a wide area of the network that test the sensitivity of the different protection elements and assess the coordination of the protection system are proving effective.

These protection security assessments test sensitivity against element-specific criteria and coordination, regardless of relay types and locations, throughout each stage of the fault clearing cycle.

The automated simulation and the intelligent visualisation of results allows engineers responsible for the safe operation of the electric grid to efficiently perform periodic assessments and ensure the adequacy of protection system behaviour for credible contingencies and following system changes.

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Learn more about how we conducted Protection Security Assessments.

Efficient and comprehensive assessments along several protection dimensions to maintain performance awareness and demonstrate regulatory compliance.

Network operators seek to ensure protection systems prevent and abate catastrophic outages and cascading events. To this end, regulatory requirements imposed on protection departments within transmission and generation utilities are anticipated to increase. The systematic detailed assessment supported to challenge the protection system and determine vulnerabilities include;

• Confirming proper coordination of generating unit facility voltage regulating controls, limit functions, equipment capabilities and protection system settings.
• Transmission line loadability studies testing load-responsive protection elements for encroachments under credible contingency scenarios.
• Voltage, frequency and volts-per-hertz protective devices operation remaining outside the boundary regions defined by regulators.
• Generator relay loadability based on realistic overload criteria determine from generator real power and reactive power capabilities, voltage level and plant internal impedances.
• Impedance and overcurrent based protection reliability under stable power swing conditions using power swing stability boundary for impedance-based elements and maximum system current for phase overcurrent devices.
• Identification of critical areas of coordination reevaluation through comparisons between current and historical fault levels.
• Automated coordination studies of the part of the system under review with output management capabilities to slice and dice at different levels of consolidation a relay protection simulation software package to assist with meeting these requirements and help utilities understand the reliability of their protection system.

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Learn more about how we conducted Protection System Compliance Assessments.

Maximise the efficiency of knowledge development and application.

The Power System Protection training courses offered by Applied Power Technologies apply the advanced features of leading Protection engineering software applications to demonstrate the electrical factors influencing the performance of the protection system elements. They develop a working knowledge of these technical considerations to understand the design criteria and methodologies widely accepted as best practices for undertaking protection setting designs and performance reviews.

Applied Power Technologies is also embarking on an initiative to develop readily available resources in short video tutorials, worksheets, and guidelines. The video resources provide clear and concise explanations of specific topics, including impedance measurements, arc resistance and mutual coupling. Guidelines and worksheets capturing fundamental calculations, such as current transformer performance selection, are also intended to be available. These resources, when available, will be an investment into the knowledge development of the next generation of power system engineers.

Learn how we conducted Technology Transfers