Sunday, June 23, 2013

Auto Reclosure

Auto Reclosing Schemes:-
         Types of Faults:-

i) Transient Faults:-
These are cleared by the immediate tripping of circuit breakers and do not recur when the line is re-energised.

ii) Semi-permanent Faults:-
            These require a time interval to disappear before a line is charged again.

iii) Permanent Faults:-
            These are to be located and repaired before the line is re-energised.

            About 80-90% of the faults occurring are transient in nature.  Hence the automatic reclosure of breaker (after tripping on fault) will result in the line being successfully re-energised, thereby

a)      Decreasing outage time
b)      Improving reliability
c)      Improving system stability
d)     Reduces fault damage and maintenance time

Dead Time:-
The time between the Auto-reclosing scheme being energised  and the 1st reclosure of the circuit breaker . This is normally set at 1 Sec.

Reclaim Time:-
The time following a successful closing operation measured from the instant the auto-reclosing relay closing contacts making which must elapse before the auto-reclosing relay initiated another reclosing attempt.  In other words, it may be said to be the time between 1st and 2nd re-closure.

Types of Auto-reclosing schemes (based on phase):

a)         Three phase Auto-reclosing:

This type of auto-reclosing causes an immediate drift apart of the two systems and hence no interchange of synchronizing power can take place during the dead time.

b)         Single Phase Auto-reclosing:

In this only the faulty phase (which already has tripped on SLG fault) is reclosed without causing interruption in interchange of synchronising  power between two systems through other two healthy phases.


Types of Auto-reclosing schemes (case on attempts of reclosure):

a)         Single Shot Auto-reclosing:-

In this scheme, breaker is reclosed only once on a given fault before lockout of circuit breaker occurs.  High speed auto-reclosing for EHV system is invariably single shot.


b)         Multi-shot Auto-reclosing:-

In this scheme, more than one reclosing attempt is made for a given fault before lockout of the circuit breaker occurs.  Repeated closure attempts with high fault level would seriously affect the circuit breaker, equipment and system stability.  The factors that must be taken into account:-

i)                    Circuit Breaker Limitations:-
Ability of circuit breaker to perform several trip close operations in quick succession.

            ii)         System Conditions:-
In the percentage of the semi-permanent faults (which could be burnt out) is moderate, for example on the lines through the forest, multishot auto-reclosing is followed.

Types of Auto-reclosing (depending on speed):
I) High speed Auto-reclosing:

          This aids in fast restoration of supply but should be done by taking into account the following factors:-

i)                    System disturbance time can be tolerated without loss of system stability
ii)                  Characteristics of protection schemes and circuit breaker.

II) Low Speed or Delayed Auto-reclosing:-

This is suitable for highly interconnected systems where the loss of a single line is unlikely to cause two sections of the system to drift apart and loose synchronism.

For EHV Systems:-

a) Choice of Dead Time:

            Lower limit  is decided by deionising time of circuit breaker.
     
            Upper limit is decided by transient stability and synchronism.

            Long transmission lines require longer dead time for single phase faults.

The dead time for high speed auto-reclosing scheme with EHV system is 0.3-0.8 Sec.

b) Choice for reclaim time:-


This should not be set to such a low value that the operating cycle of breaker is exceeded when two fault incident occurs close together.  The reclaim time will be in the range of 10-30 Sec., depending on the breaker opening and closing mechanisms.

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Chitika