It was shown before, the drop in voltage during a sag is due to a short circuit being present in the system. The moment the short circuit fault is cleared by the protection, the voltage starts to return to its original value.
The duration of a sag is thus determined by the fault-clearing time. However, the actual duration of a sag is normally longer than the fault-clearing time. Measurement of sag duration is less trivial than it might appear.
From a recording the sag duration may be obvious, but to come up with an automatic way for a power quality monitor to obtain the sag duration is no longer straightforward. The commonly used definition of sag duration is the number of cycles during which the rms voltage is below a given threshold.
This threshold will be somewhat different for each monitor but typical values are around 90% of the nominal voltage. A power quality monitor will typically calculate the rms value once every cycle.
The main problem is that the so-called post-fault sag will affect the sag duration. When the fault is cleared, the voltage does not recover immediately. This is mainly due to the reenergizing and reacceleration of induction motor load (Bollen, 1995).
This post-fault sag can last several seconds, much longer than the actual sag. Therefore, the sag duration as defined before, is no longer equal to the fault clearing time.
More seriously, different power quality monitors will give different values for the sag duration. As the rms voltage recovers slowly, a small difference in threshold setting may already lead to a serious difference in recorded sag duration (Bollen, 1999).
Generally speaking, faults in transmission systems are cleared faster than faults in distribution systems. In transmission systems, the critical fault-clearing time is rather small.
Thus, fast protection and fast circuit breakers are essential. Also, transmission and subtransmission systems are normally operated as a grid, requiring distance protection or differential protection, both of which allow for fast clearing of the fault.
The principal form of protection in distribution systems is overcurrent protection. This requires a certain amount of time-grading, which increases the fault-clearing time. An exception is formed by systems in which current-limiting fuses are used.
These have the ability to clear a fault within one half-cycle. In overhead distribution systems, the instantaneous trip of the recloser will lead to a short sag duration, but the clearing of a permanent fault will give a sag of much longer duration.
The so-called magnitude-duration plot is a common tool used to show the quality of supply at a certain location or the average quality of supply of a number of locations. Voltage sags due to faults can be shown in such a plot, as well as sags due to motor starting, and even long and short interruptions.
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