Anatomy of a Secured Wide Area Backup Protection

Advancements in telecommunication technology have opened up new horizons in power system protection such as wide area protection. In this protection data collected at busbars of power system are transmitted to a control centre where a backup protection is provided to prevent blackouts. This paper proposes a technique for speeding up the protection while maintaining its integrity. Based on the fact that voltages drop fast under fault conditions in a network, voltage signals derived from the busbars have been used as a complementary backup for differential protection used on wide area protection. The applicability of the new algorithm has been tested with the simulation study on the Northern Ireland Electricity 275 kV network and the results presented show validity of the new method.