Impact of advancements on automated relay testing over checking earth fault characteristics

It is known that microprocessor based relay testing has become a challenge nowadays mainly because of the increased complexity. Most of the modem numerical relays have provisions to detect phase-to-ground faults for any type of neutral compensation. This raises the standard for everybody in the relay industry to introduce improved settings management as well as reliable test plans. To create a manual test plan becomes increasingly difficult so the focus on developing fully automated test plans is no longer a luxury but a necessity. This paper describes some of the challenges in developing an automatic test plan for earth fault detection functions.