Quite a few yrs. ago around 1988, I was a Protection and Control Engineer at a large utility in the SE. We were doing our planning to bring the final unit of a large 4 unit plant on line, when it was discovered that we could encounter some unusual instability scenarios. The funny thing was that with all units on-line and above a certain MW output, all that would need to occur would be opening of a remote 500kV breaker on one of the particular lines and the event could trigger, eventually bringing ALL 4 units at the plant out-of-step and tripping off all of the generation in just a few minutes (3600 MW). <\/p>\n
The studies were performed numerous times by internal and external experts but the results were always the same. The key problem seemed to be the existing network configuration of 4 units and only 3 transmission lines. Adding a 4th 500kV line from the plant seemed to cure the problem under all conditions, including close in 3 phase faults with breaker failure. Unfortunately, the cost and timeline to build a new t-line was a real challenge! <\/p>\n
In order to proceed with commissioning the 4th unit and remediating any scenarios for tripping all generation, a Special Protection System (SPS) was developed. A transfer trip channel was installed at the remote substation, keying on the breaker contact opening. At the plant, a Unit Trip scheme was installed that had a MW meter supervising tripping of any one unit selected by the plant operator (U1-U2-U3-U4). If all units were on line and generation was above 2500 MW (margin of safety added), then a receipt of remote breaker opening would trip the selected unit to avoid having all units cascade into out-of-step condition. <\/p>\n
Advantages: Clearly, this Special Protection System saved the day, and bought time until an additional line was added 4 years later. <\/p>\n
Disadvantages: The downside was the challenge of installing and testing such a complicated scheme with the potential for mis-operation. I don’t recall any mis-operations occurring, but it was still a bit “dicey”. I have been at that same plant during a full load unit trip (Generator differential) and it was an “exciting” experience to say the least! While I did recommend that we conduct a “live test” to see what would really happen and perhaps test our system BLACK START procedures, this suggestion was not well received by management (LOL). <\/p>\n
This was my only encounter with such a special protection system scheme in my 35 years of utility work, but it was very interesting to be involved with this project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Quite a few yrs. ago around 1988, I was a Protection and Control Engineer at a large utility in the SE. We were doing our planning to bring the final unit of a large 4 unit plant on line, when it was discovered that we could encounter some unusual instability scenarios. The funny thing was that with all units on-line and above a certain MW output, all that would need to occur would be opening of a remote 500kV breaker on one of the particular lines and the event could trigger, eventually bringing ALL 4 units at the plant out-of-step and tripping off all of the generation in just a few minutes (3600 MW). <\/p>\n
The studies were performed numerous times by internal and external experts but the results were always the same. The key problem seemed to be the existing network configuration of 4 units and only 3 transmission lines. Adding a 4th 500kV line from the plant seemed to cure the problem under all conditions, including close in 3 phase faults with breaker failure. Unfortunately, the cost and timeline to build a new t-line was a real challenge! <\/p>\n
In order to proceed with commissioning the 4th unit and remediating any scenarios for tripping all generation, a Special Protection System (SPS) was developed. A transfer trip channel was installed at the remote substation, keying on the breaker contact opening. At the plant, a Unit Trip scheme was installed that had a MW meter supervising tripping of any one unit selected by the plant operator (U1-U2-U3-U4). If all units were on line and generation was above 2500 MW (margin of safety added), then a receipt of remote breaker opening would trip the selected unit to avoid having all units cascade into out-of-step condition. <\/p>\n
Advantages: Clearly, this Special Protection System saved the day, and bought time until an additional line was added 4 years later. <\/p>\n
Disadvantages: The downside was the challenge of installing and testing such a complicated scheme with the potential for mis-operation. I don’t recall any mis-operations occurring, but it was still a bit “dicey”. I have been at that same plant during a full load unit trip (Generator differential) and it was an “exciting” experience to say the least! While I did recommend that we conduct a “live test” to see what would really happen and perhaps test our system BLACK START procedures, this suggestion was not well received by management (LOL). <\/p>\n
This was my only encounter with such a special protection system scheme in my 35 years of utility work, but it was very interesting to be involved with this project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13926"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15052,"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13926\/revisions\/15052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbdrivex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}