ENGLISH EDITION Overcurrent protection-relay testing with Real-Time Digital Simulator Hardware

Abstract. In this paper, the authors present an overcurrent protection-relay testing procedure by a applying special simulation hardware for a real-time power-system digital simulation (RTDS). The RTDS simulator enables real-time calculation of the electromagnetic phenomena with the calculation time step of even 50 µs. The hardware enables import and export of many signals from the simulator to an external actual power-system equipment and therefore the so-called closed-loop testing. In this way, it is possible to have an insight both into the equipment behaviour and also into the impact of this equipment on the power-system operation. Testing of a very simple definite-time protection function by using the ABB protection relay REF 630 is described and the obtained test results are shown proving a remarkable usefulness of the RTDS simulator for determination of the actual power-system equipment behaviour at various power-system states