Adaptive phasor estimation technique during off-nominal frequency for numerical relays

Abstract

The use of digital multifunction protection relays and their proper integration on the power system and smart grid is an important element. However, the performance of digital relays depends on many factors and needs to be carefully evaluated. These factors may be caused by correct operations with less performance or completely incorrect operations. Frequency deviation is one of those factors which results from unbalanced demand load and generation levels. Load characteristics and generation control response to demand load changes will effect on amount and duration of frequency deviations. Frequency decreases when demand load is higher than generation, whereas it increases when load is less than generation. Protection relays are provided with frequency tracking to reduce the effects of frequency deviations on accuracy of relay decisions. In this paper, traditional frequency tracking technique used on protection relays is modified to give a better performance (less Total Vector Error, TVE) during off-nominal frequency variations. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with traditional tracking using Least Square Error (LSQ), and Discrete Fourier transform (DFT) algorithm without any tracking, which are investigated in MATLAB environment.

Keywords

• Numerical relays
• frequency deviation
• phasor estimation
• digital signal processing