Zack Wieger, Senior EI&C Engineer, and Tanner Bryant, Electrical Engineer, Mesa Associates, Inc. will present “Combustion Turbine Generator Protection” at the 2022 Fall Combustion Turbine Operations Technical Forum (CTOTF) Conference. The presentation will provide an overview of protection methods and considerations commonly applied to utility-scale combustion turbine generators. Wieger and Bryant’s presentation will be Tuesday, September 13 from 1:05 PM to 2:05 PM.
Abstract
Understanding combustion turbine generator (CTG) relay protection schemes are critical to maintaining safe and reliable operation of the generating unit. The protection system must permit uninterrupted operation of the generating unit under normal conditions while operating selectively for abnormal or fault conditions. This presentation is primarily focused on the main power path of a combustion turbine generator i.e., generator, bus, main transformer, and auxiliary transformer(s). In this presentation, the generally accepted forms of protection will be reviewed and discussed. Generator protection is comprised of various relay elements working in conjunction to protect the unit; these elements often include, but are not limited to, differential, reverse power, loss of excitation, negative sequence, volts/hertz, stator ground, out of step, and frequency protection. Other protection considerations will be discussed for various operating scenarios such as offline, starting, and syncing. Bus and transformer protection is equally important and must be coordinated with the generator protection to provide adequate unit protection; these elements often include, but are not limited to, differential, overcurrent, and ground detection. Multifunction microprocessor-based relays allow these elements to be implemented in an efficient, economical, and reliable manner due to their superior observability. These relays are capable of providing advanced functions such as sequence of events recording, oscillography, self-diagnostics, and an array of communication functions. This presentation intends to provide an overview of protection methods and considerations commonly applied to utility-scale combustion turbine generators.
About Mesa Associates, Inc.
Mesa is a woman/minority-owned full-service multi-discipline engineering, procurement, and construction management firm specializing in providing engineering services for the commercial, government, industrial, municipal, and electric utility industry. Mesa is currently providing over $188M of engineering services to 13 of the top 15 utilities across the United States. Our growth is a result of delivering quality projects and value to our clients with unparalleled customer service. We differentiate ourselves by saying we are Large Enough to Perform, Small Enough to Care.