Protection, metering, monitoring, and control of medium-voltage power systems

Traditional practices for industrial and commercial medium-voltage power systems to provide protection, metering, monitoring, control, power quality analysis, disturbance recording, and automation have changed. The new multifunction numerical protection relays using the processing power of the present generation of microprocessors have very high functionality. Many functions can be integrated into one device, allowing new power system problem-solving capabilities while permitting significant cost savings as compared with discrete protective relays, instruments, meters, recorders, and transducers of the past. This paper describes the vast capabilities and recent enhancements of these devices, which will be called intelligent electronic devices in this paper. Included are anecdotes obtained from an installation on a large industrial power system.