Adaptive Mho Distance Protection for Interconnected Transmission Lines Compensated with Thyristor Controlled Series Capacitor

Abstract

This paper proposes an adaptive dynamic Mho distance relay based on a phase comparator scheme for protecting interconnected transmission networks compensated with a Thyristor Controlled Series Capacitor (TCSC). The proposed relay uses an impedance index factor to initiate the fault detection subroutine. The RMS of the positive sequence current of the faulted loop and the TCSC terminal current are compared for TCSC zone identification. A phase comparator for ground and phase distance elements is proposed, relying on the positive sequence voltage as a polarized memory quantity, while the operating and polarizing quantities are developed using estimated TCSC impedance to mitigate its negative impact. The proposed scheme is easy in implementation and independent on synchronized data transfer, as minimum communication requirements are needed. To evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme, extensive simulation studies were carried out on an IEEE9 bus system compensated with TCSC for different firing angles covering four modes of TCSC operations, different fault types, and fault locations. In addition, an IEEE-39 bus network, as a large interconnected system, is tested for validation purposes. The achieved results designate the precision of the proposed scheme. Moreover, the results indicate its effectiveness for fault resistance tolerance, close-in three phase faults, and stable power swing phenomenon compared with conventional relays.