must saturate sufficiently high to allow a relatively accurate measurement of the

fault current by the protection whose operating threshold can be very high.
Current transformers are thus expected to have an Accuracy Limit Factor
(ALF) that is usually fairly high. Note that the associated “relay” must be able to
withstand high overcurrents.
An “instrument”current transformer (CT) requires good accuracy around the
nominal current value. The metering instruments do not need to withstand
currents as high as the protection relays. This is why the “instrument” CTs,
unlike the “protection” CTs, have the lowest possible Safety Factor (SF) in order
to protect these instruments through earlier saturation.
Some current transformers have secondary windings dedicated to protection
and metering. These “instrument” and “protection” CTs are governed
by standard IEC 60044-1 (in France NF C 42-502).
The matching of CTs with protection relays calls for a thorough knowledge of
current transformers. The following section gives a few reminders of CTs
corresponding to this use.

Characterisation of CTs
An example of a protection CT //
 Rated primary current: 200 A,
 Rated secondary current: 5 A.

An example of a protection CT

Its accuracy load: Pn = 15 VA

Its accuracy limit factor is ALF = 10
For I = ALF. In, its accuracy is 5% (5P), (see figure 1)
To simplify, for the protection CT given in example, the ratio error is less than
5% at 10 In , if the real load consumes 15 VA at In. However these data are not
sufficient. Also, it is useful to know the standard values.