Ensto Protrol designs and manufactures reliable, cost-effective monitoring, controlling and fault detecting devices for secondary substation automation in the medium voltage distribution grid. The company has patented its unique fault detection technology and the products have a proven record for being both sensitive and accurate. The smart equipment can identify and isolate the faulty section of the network and instantly restore the power for the customers.
In the underground cable networks, it is very difficult to accurately detect earth faults in high impedance grounded or isolated networks what comes to fault direction. This is because the fault currents often are small. Traditional directional earth fault relays require polarizing voltage which drastically increases the costs if used in secondary substations.
Ensto Protrol decided to think differently. Bo Almér, responsible for Sales and Marketing says: “Our patented Fault Passage Indicator (FPI) analyzes three phase currents to determine if the earth fault current has passed through the measuring point. The voltage is not required to point out the direction of the fault, which saves money.” Almér continues:
“I am happy to tell that our fault passage indicators really work. Before we came with our solution there always was a struggle with the fault indication and the main challenge was the sensitivity. Now the small currents are not a problem.”
Protrol’s FPI technology includes overcurrent, directional earth fault, non-directional earth fault and phase break detection functions. This technology is applicable not only in the underground cable grid, but for overhead lines, too.
The new generation fault passage indicators IPC402x are everything you need for the secondary substation to truly impact your SAIFI and SAIDI figures. With communication to SCADA and remote control, the faulty section is safely isolated, and the outage time is reduced from hours to minutes.
In the open loop and radial configurations, the devices can automatically isolate the faulty section and restore the power. Depending on the type of communication media this can be done almost immediately if the communication delay is short. Each unit communicates with its closest neighbor to determine the fault location.
The IPC4020 series with metal casing combines Ensto Protrol’s well-established fault detection technology with traditional RTU functionality. The devices have 16 binary inputs and 8 binary outputs and can monitor and control one or several bays using standard communication protocols, such as IEC 60870-5-101 and IEC 60870-5-104. The products have two types of earth fault detectors: Protrol's patented detection technology, and a complementary non-directional earth fault function. In addition, they include two overcurrent steps with adjustable delay time that operate independently of each other.
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