6/24/2020 Restricted Earth Fault Protection of Transformer | REF Protection | Electrical4U

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Restricted Earth Fault Protection of Transformer | REF Protection

Last updated November 17, 2019 by Electrical4U

Restricted Earth Fault Protection of Transformer

An external fault in the star side will result in current flowing in the line current transformer of the affected phase and at
the same time a balancing current flows in the neutral current transformer, hence the resultant current in the relay is
therefore zero. So this REF relay will not be actuated for external earth fault. But during an internal fault, the neutral
current transformer only carries the unbalance fault current and operation of Restricted Earth Fault Relay takes place.
This scheme of restricted earth fault protection is very sensitive for internal earth fault of electrical power transformer.
The protection scheme is comparatively cheaper than differential protection scheme.

Restricted earth fault protection is provided in electrical power transformer for sensing internal earth fault of the
transformer. In this scheme, the CT secondary of each phase of an electrical power transformer are connected together as
shown in the figure. Then common terminals are connected to the secondary of a Neutral Current Transformer or NCT.

The CT or Current Transformer connected to the neutral of a power transformer is called Neutral Current Transformer
or Neutral CT or simply NCT. Whenever there is an unbalancing in between three phases of the power transformer, a
resultant unbalance current flow through the closed path connected to the common terminals of the CT secondaries. An
unbalance current will also flow through the neutral of the power transformer and hence there will be a secondary
current in Neutral CT because of this unbalance neutral current.

In Restricted Earth Fault scheme the common terminals of phase CTs are connected to the secondary of Neutral CT in
such a manner that secondary unbalance current of phase CTs, and the secondary current of Neutral CT will oppose each
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other. If these both currents are equal in amplitude there will not be any resultant current circulates through the said
closed path. The Restricted Earth Fault Relay is connected in this closed path. Hence the relay will not respond even
there is an unbalancing in-phase current of the power transformer.

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