Protection relays

[wolfie1a]

We are looking at upgrading some protection relays. We are looking at SEL, Siemens, ABB, Eaton....... Trying to determine who is the best? Looking for feedback. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ScottyUK]

Define 'best'? Most are reliable. What other features do you need / want?

 

[wolfie1a]

Reliability, ease of use, drawout case, long term viability of the company, customer support, internal PLCs, wave form capture, comm protocals supported, self diagnostics... are few considerations I'm looking at.

 

[davidbeach]

Best? Trying to start some sort of Religious War now are you? ;-)

One person's best is somebody else's piece of junk. And vice versa.

Who provides good support in your location? What relays are similar installations using in the area? What are you familiar with?

 

[wolfie1a]

As of now we have two camps on site, one side like the Siemens 7sj6's and the other camp likes SEL. We have few strays that like the Basler and other misc relays. I've been reading a thread on linkedin and was hoping this forum could provide some feedback.

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Which-relay-brand-is-good-3042254.S.109465366

 

[davidbeach]

Personally, I like the SEL relays, but no drawout cases (and we don't miss them). If you're in North America you need to consider Siemens somewhat spotty record of trying to establish a presence, giving up, and then coming back to try again. Somebody that can do a decent job with all the relays you need will probably work out better in the long run than going with different manufacturers for different applications, even if you can find the "optimum" relay for each application. Gaining a good knowledge of the quirks of a single manufacturer's products will serve you better than having to keep up with multiple manufacturers.

But, ultimately it boils down to preference as long as you stay in the top tier.

 

[dpc]

If you are in the USA, it's hard to come up with a recommendation other than SEL due to their customer support and warranty. I agree with David that there are benefits to sticking with a single supplier as much as possible. As a consultant, I've had to learn how to configure and program a lot of different relays and the learning curve can be steep and time-consuming. Recently had to configure an ABB RER reclosing relay and it was a PITA to learn a completely new product - much different than older ABB relays I have dealt with.

 

[ScottyUK]

Alstom's relays are capable but they can be a pig to program and the manuals are awful, not for lack of detail but for sheer overload of obscure and esoteric information while omitting or hiding the more commonplace stuff. The old Areva relay business split in the last few years with the more basic relays going to Schneider and the top-of-the-line going back to Alstom. I don't personally think Schneider will keep the range in the long term as they already have the SEPAM series, and I expect Alstom will soon develop their own basic relays to plug the gaps in the ranks.

GE's larger stuff was decent to work as I recall, the G60 / T60 era. Their offering was more geared toward generating plant than transmission and distribution in my opinion, but if that's your line of business then they might fit the bill.

ABB's newer line isn't as well-finished as the older stuff from Baden, given the massive improvements in computing power and the advent of the GUI since the days of the RE*216 series. There are glitches and quirks which should have been resolved before it ever saw the outside world.

Nothing against the Siemens relays, other than they are quite unforgiving in terms of configuration. If you do everything correctly, in the correct sequence, they are fine. Damned expensive too as I recall, at least in the UK.

 

[piterpol]

Another good point for SEL is the economical one.

 

[cranky108]

I don't think there is a guage to measure service, and dependibility. It's more look at manuals, and ask about service from sales reps. Some are better than others.

But my first clue would be to look at the manuals and see about the readability. Some are really bad, and some have been translated quite well. And some assume you have a PHD to be able to read them.

Service and assistance is another factor to look at. The local sales rep. might be bad, but the company might be quite good, or the other way around.

 

[Zogzog]

What are you upgrading from and why are you upgrading would be key factors.

 

[jraef]

I had a job offer from Siemens on being the protection relay guy for the west coast. I thought their market share, for the entire US, was pathetic and the lack of people who can service / support them is reflected in that. When I went to work for a different division of Siemens, I would keep getting calls from desperate customers wanting help on relays and getting frustrated trying to get answers.

For the most part I like SEL too, they are very highly reliable and the company is first class. I've used a lot of GE / Multilin too, nothing wrong with them either, but their sales channel strategy flips and flops back and forth too much for me. They used to market through very knowledgeable reps when they were Multilin, then they decided I had to buy from Gexpro (the old GE Supply), who were completely useless. Now they are doing both, but the reps are no longer very motivated because they lose all the big orders to Gexpro. Kind of sad really, the Multilin guys taught me a lot about protection relays in their day. I think SEL has picked up on that and stepped up their game on support to take advantage.


"You measure the size of the accomplishment by the obstacles you had to overcome to reach your goals" -- Booker T. Washington

 

[melspuds]

I agree, using only SEL products is the only way to. Their manuals, programing, start-up and esae of monitoring and controlling with A-B plc SCADA are all first class. Good support from sales also.

Two years ago, I switched out a double ended 138kv/34.5kv, 250MW substation for a steel mill with two arc furnaces and several rolling mills from electo-mech relays to SEL ones.

The 138kv bus is normally open, but the utility gives a $10,000 discount/month for them to tie them together. That saves them building another line. There where two utilities and now there is only one. Also on the 34.5kv side is bedirectional for feeding us or we feeding them one or both lines. The breakers have 2 sets of trip setting and the revenue metering started out to be a real mess, but after reading the manuals it was fairly easy.

Removed all of the old relays and panels and was up and running in 22 hours. I was allowed no more then 48 hours, so I looked good to my boss. Now we are switching out all of the old metering by the end of 2015.

 

[ScottyUK]

"I agree, using only SEL products is the only way to."

Maybe in the US. There's a place called "the rest of the world" where SEL have little presence and where the old-established European brands dominate. That might be a factor to consider?

 

[Yo121]

I have used SEL, and they're fine, probably one of the best. I think GE's Multilin family of UR "Universal Relays", which are designed on a modular platform, are interesting...especially with the hard-fiber process bus "brick". The brick is a remote I/O device that would mount in substation equipment, say in a circuit breaker cabinet, that uses IEC 61850 GOOSE messaging. IEC 61850 is probably what everyone will be using sooner than later for a protocol. It's an advanced protocol developed specifically for utility applications and reduces time spent mapping registers or "objects" by doing it almost automatically.

The GE brick is a remote I/O interface where even CT and PT inputs can be plugged into it, and the UR's simply sample the signals at their own internal clocks. No other protective relay manufacturer has a remote I/O device like this, of which I know, on the market right now. The brick can significantly reduce copper wiring in the substation yard, replacing copper control and instrument cables with fiber optic cables that are immune to EMI. One can even use redundant bricks, have primary and backup relays on their own brick and have those two bricks "talk" to each other; then one can shift the backup on the primary brick if that secondary brick fails or if it's being serviced. ABB has something similar to this called a "merging unit", but I don't know if they have it widely available, yet. GE Multilin makes relays for nearly all applications, not just power plants. It's just that many companies use them for plant applications. However, I see no reason why they couldn't be used on an entire transmission system, again, as Multilin has relays for about every application including buses that could use dynamic zone protection. They even have transmission line relays (directional distance, mho or quadilateral characteristics or pilot relaying).

I would seriously look into the GE brick. It would all but eliminate copper control and instrumentation cables in the substation yard. Really you'd only have to run DC power to the brick and that's it....of course you'd have to run power to the breakers, transformers, etc. Programming probably wouldn't be that bad, too...probably about the same as using conventional I/O on the back of a numerical SEL relay, except it would all be via GOOSE messaging. I think the brick takes advantage of IEC 61850 very well. Some people may be hesitant to use this because important I/O, including tripping outputs, for the relays wouldn't be hardwired to the relay; relying instead upon a communications channel. However, I've not heard bad things about the reliability of IEC 61850 or the GE brick. Also, the brick is environmentally hardened and the fiber cables running to the brick are rugged and even have a rodent barrier built into them. Also, it seems more utilities are turning toward IEC 61850 for protective relaying applications. So, if you're uncomfortable with the idea of using a comms channel for crucial I/O, I'd probably go with SEL or GE. Either are better than most other manufacturers out there for either plant or transmission relaying, with good support and customer service....SEL's support and customer service might be better than Multilin's.

 

[LionelHutz]

In North America, SEL relays are a good choice. They are economical and work well.

We have experienced terrible reliability of GE products the last while. We even had every GE relay fail multiple times at one site.

 

[cranky108]

Scotty, In the US it is hard to get good service from most equipment manufacturers. The brands from over seas tend to be very light on support, and very limited stock in the US. Also service tends to be on eastern time. I also have the same complaint with many US manufactures, in that they are mainly on eastern time.

Many of us in the West really don't like having customer service only from 8 Am to 2 Pm, and none available for a week after a snow storm.

SEL is located in the west and has customer service from 9Am to 6Pm, and is available after a snow storm. And they have a sales and service person, in addition to a service engineer a hour away from here.

I think most new inventions that are good will spread across the industry as soon the patent wears off, and if the brick really is a good idea it will be the same way. I just don't care for the GE sales staff, so I don't try any of there products.

 

[ScottyUK]

I would really like to have a play with one of the SEL relays just to see how good they are. A lot of people on this forum whose opinions I trust speak highly of them.

We could probably get hold of them as an import but I think it would be hard to handle in terms of support. I wonder if SEL have ever tried to break into the European market? It is such a small 'c' conservative industry that I think it would be tough for a newcomer even if they were exceptional, but it would be nice to see someone challenge Alstom's dominance and maybe teach them how to write user-friendly manuals.

 

[dpc]

Scotty,

Just out of curiosity, I looked on the SEL website and they do list a Customer Support person and Protection specialist in the UK. I'm guessing they might loan you a relay to evaluate. Our local support engineer has an entire rack full of relays (at home) that he uses for support purposes.

Cheers,

Dave

 

[davidbeach]

SEL has an office in "Stafford ST16 2RH". More details are available from the SEL web site. They have some presence (sold at least one unit) throughout most of the world, but are certainly strongest in North America. Manuals are all available on line once you register with SEL.