Protection and control system studies

Why protection and control system studies?

As power systems evolve, protection must continuously adapt with changing networks, conditions and regulations to avoid mis-operation and costly outage times. PTI Consulting draws on long-standing experience in system protection to help you with:

Protection schemes and settings: Determine reliable, compliant schemes for power systems of any size and optimize relay settings.
Disturbance analysis: Find root cause of failures and get clear mitigation recommendations.
Instrument transformer dimensioning: Right-size current transformer (CT) and voltage transformer (VT) dimensioning for modern digital relays and cost efficiency.
WAMPAC study and roadmap: Plan secure, automated wide-area protection and control for complex grids.

Improve system reliability

Limit over- and under-functions of protection relays.

Save costs

Minimize the risk of damage to electrical equipment and subsequent outage times. 

Ensure compliance

Adhere to regulatory and (inter)national protection standards.

Details of protection and control system studies

Protection schemes and settings

Properly design and coordinate your protection system.

Frequently changing system conditions call for a continuous review and adaptation of the protection system. Our protection experts at PTI Consulting define adequate protection functions for transmission line, transformer, circuit breaker, generator, and motor protection, and design protection and control schemes for special applications such as series compensated lines. The settings calculations for all relevant protection functions are based on utility-specific protection philosophies.

We also evaluate existing protection philosophies and practices at utilities and benchmark them against industry standards and best practices. The resulting gap analysis helps to drive improvements and upgrades to the protection system.

Disturbance analysis

Detect the root causes for disturbances and resolve them.

To understand the root causes of failures in increasingly complex power systems, often the knowledge of specialists in various fields of grid planning – such as protection, insulation coordination, system dynamics, or operation – needs to be combined.

The PTI Consulting team supports grid operators in data collection and verification, including the analysis of reference events and on-site measurements. Based on detailed modeling, our consultants help to verify the root cause, propose and validate mitigation measures.

Instrument transformer dimensioning

Select and dimension instrument transformers.

The development of digital protection technology and the introduction of gas insulated switchgear (GIS) have led to a paradigm shift in current transformer (CT) and voltage transformer (VT) dimensioning. Given the limited space in GIS substations, the accuracy of the limiting factor plays an important role.

The Siemens PTI Consulting experts support you in optimizing VTs and CTs in terms of both the technical requirements of modern digital relays as well as economic aspects.

Wide area monitoring, protection and control study and roadmap

Ensure stable power system operation with wide-area applications.

The higher penetration of renewables and the increase in stability interactions are leading to the need for automated schemes that initiate corrective actions in the system to maintain system security. Such schemes are system-critical when no operator can react in this time frame.

The proper implementation of such Wide Area Monitoring, Protection and Control (WAMPAC) systems is essential for future grid operation. PTI Consulting delivers a comprehensive roadmap on how to implement such a system in the field and shows which essential company processes need to be adapted.

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Discover how others use protection system studies

Titan Cement, Southeast Europe

Highly reliable power supply

Conducted a fully validated survey, documentation, and modeling of the power/protection system, assessed performance to design improved, reliable, and safe network structures, and transferred know-how through tailored workshops.

GRIDCo, Ghana

Protection and security improvement

Created a national digital protection system model for GRIDCo, Ghana's transmission operator, conducted in-depth performance assessment and weak-point analysis, and significantly reduced the potential for severe outages.

Generation owner, USA

NERC PRC compliance evaluation

Evaluated generating station protection for compliance with NERC standards PRC-019, 024, and 025, analyzed overcurrent, loss-of-field, V/Hz, and under/overexcitation limiters, recommended setting changes to mitigate issues found.

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