An Enhanced Adaptive Algorithm to Mitigate Mis-coordination Problem of the Third Zone of Distance Relays

Cascaded tripping of power lines due to mal-operation of zone 3 distance relays is one of the main causes of many blackouts worldwide. The improved protection technique for zone 3 can help to prevent such mal-operation and, thus, more reliable power systems can be envisaged. This paper presents a novel zone-3 setting scheme based on impedance seen by distance relays in order to calculate zone-3 setting of the relays when faults are simulated on the reach of zone-2 of primary distance relays. The new technique is also enhanced to be used in an adaptive protection system. Since three phase fault rarely occurs in the system and in order to have better demonstration of effectiveness of the proposed scheme, it is tested for various type of faults such as, two phase (AB), single phase to ground (AG) and two phase to ground (ABG) as well as three-phase (ABC) using data simulated through DIgSILENT in the IEEE 30-bus test system during different topologies. The simulation results show that the novel zone 3 distance relay elements using the proposed method operate correctly for various events.