SEL Recommendations on Periodic Maintenance Testing of Protective Relays

Over the past few years, there has been increased interest in testing practices for protective relaying systems. For example, NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation) produced Standard PRC-017-0 – Special Protection System Maintenance and Testing, which states its purpose: “To ensure that all Special Protection Systems (SPS) are properly designed, meet performance requirements, and are coordinated with other protection systems. To ensure that maintenance and testing programs are developed and misoperations are analyzed and corrected” Moreover, utilities are being asked to document and show implementation of their maintenance program. As a way of supporting this effort, SEL was asked to provide guidance to the power industry to address these concerns. The purpose of this paper is to provide recommendations for testing SEL relays and guidance for developing a test program. Utilities and other end users should use their own experience and expertise to develop and implement their test plans.

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