Benefits of upgrading protection schemes for hydroelectric power plants

The role played by various energy sources has undergone a sweeping change during the post-deregulation era in the power industry. In the wake of this transformation, hydroelectric power plants, primarily employed as peaking units, assume great opportunities in participating on load balancing and other ancillary services market. A comprehensive protection plan for hydroelectric power plants would be of great importance to improve their availability and security. This paper focuses on the benefits of elevating the existing hydrounit protection to microprocessor based protection schemes. Effects of this protection upgrade on the system reliability, availability and power market are discussed. These discussions are substantiated by an illustrative study carried out for a hydro-electric power plant in Central Texas. The paper concludes with generic recommendations on upgrade procedure for hydroelectric power plants