MSc Electrical Power Systems Engineering

Brief Description Of The Unit

1. Introduction to protection systems: The importance of protection to the operation, reliability, and safety of electrical power networks.  Outline of key components: protection relay types, current / voltage transformers.
2. Conventional protection systems: Fuses, overcurrent protection, high / low impedance differential protection, busbar protection, transformer protection, distance protection and associated schemes, protection of transformers and rotating machines, including motor and generator protection
3. Advanced protection systems: The advantages and disadvantages of multi-functional numerical protection and control devices. Principles of protection of networks with distributed generators. Protection and control systems, intended for the protection and control of integrated power systems.
4. Communications for protection: Communication technology used in protection of power systems and in substations

This unit aims to introduce the classical and advanced operating principles and main features of various types of relays and protection schemes. It provides the knowledge necessary to understand how these relays and schemes are applied to the protection of plant and systems including transmission, distribution and industrial networks, transformers, and rotating machines. 

It describes the methods and instrumentation used for testing of protective devices and complex protective solutions involving a larger number of protective devices. Finally, the unit introduces the principles of wide area monitoring, protection and control, which are underpinned by the availability of high speed information and communication technology in protection schemes. 

ILO 1: Create the requirements for fast and reliable power system protection and the main components that are part of a modern protection system.

ILO 2:Evaluate and analyse the design of protection systems for use on a transmission, distribution or industrial network through the use of hand calculations, using standard software packages such as Excel or through specialist software including PSCAD 

ILO 3: Formulate and judge how modern information and communication systems are transforming the way protection is applied to the power system and responding to the challenges of increased levels of embedded generation / HVDC. 

ILO 4: Analyse and compare the operating principles of a range of protection schemes including overcurrent, distance, busbar, transformer and motor protection. 

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1. Network protection & automation guide: protective relays, measurement & control. Alstom Grid, 2011. ISBN: 9780956867803
2. Power system relaying by Horowitz by Stanley H. John Wiley and Sons, 2014. ISBN: 9781118703199
3. Power system relaying. Horowitz by Stanley H. John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2022. ISBN: 9781119838432
4. Protective relaying: principles and applications by Blackburn, J. Lewis. CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group, 2014. ISBN: 9780429112027