Relative expense for service restoration with different types of overcurrent protection for distribution circuits

THE combination of line sectionalizing in the main feeder, individual protection at branch-line junctions, and re-closing relays and breakers at the substation has been shown to provide a cumulative reduction in consumer minutes outage (minutes of outage per consumer per year) that no one of the methods can provide alone.¹ Branch protection proved to be of greater value than line sectionalizing.