Automatic protection tracking feature allows estimation of protection devices operation under initiated network conditions (normal, short circuit at any bus or motor start-up). The results of the evaluation are displayed in tabular and graphical format thus allowing a better understanding of the protection devices operation and simple detection of unexpected protection devices tripping problems.
Protection tracking window is opened by pressingOptimize → Protection Trackingon the main menu bar.
In protection tracking window, the user can choose analysis type: Short circuit/ Power flows/ Motor start. If the short circuit is selected user need to choose short-circuit buses (Select buses), short circuit type (SC) and enter resistance at the fault location (R fault). Clicking the Select buses button opens the bus selection dialog.
Here buses to calculate protection tracking for can be selected. When multiple buses are selected protection tracking is calculated in each separately and the results are displayed in the table on the right side of the Protection tracking window.
Selecting an item in the result table displays the tracking result for that bus and highlight disconnected element on the scheme in green. Clicking the arrow of the Select buses button opens a list of previously selected buses, clicking a bus in the list recalculates protection tracking in that bus.
Results can be exported with the Export button.
In Figure 12.3 three-phase short circuit with 2 Ω resistance at fault location is initiated. When the required conditions are defined, the calculation is started by pressing the Calculate button. As depicted in Figure 12.3 1 one histogram represents the behavior of the protection system, pick up time of that histogram is green. Another histogram represents the behavior of particular protection devices (there can be more than one device in the protection system). Only those protection systems that caught abnormal system parameters are depicted.
Meanings of colors can be found by moving the mouse cursor on the color. Sometimes histogram sections can be short, thus it is possible to use the mouse wheel to zoom in or out.
