S&C Electric Company

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January 27, 2009

How to Use Coordinaide™ to Specify IntelliRupter® PulseCloser TCC Curves

Part I of a Series.

This is the first in a series of articles describing how Coordinaide — The S&C Protection and Coordination Assistant can be used to specify time-current characteristic (TCC) curves for the S&C IntelliRupter PulseCloser. This installment provides a brief description of IntelliRupter and its “family” of up to 25 unique TCC curves for a given protection profile and direction.

Future articles will discuss, in greater detail, protection profiles and overcurrent directionality, initial trip/test operations, trip elements, specifying and saving TCC curves, viewing and editing saved TCC curves, and loading TCC curves into the IntelliRupter protection and control module.

IntelliRupter PulseCloser

S&C’s IntelliRupter PulseCloser is a breakthrough in overhead distribution system protection. This unitized package of fault-interrupting and control components can operate as a standalone fault interrupter or, with appropriate options, can be integrated into a SCADA system and/or an S&C IntelliTEAM II® Automatic Restoration System.

IntelliRupter features S&C’s revolutionary PulseClosing™ Technology — a unique means for verifying that the line is clear of faults before initiating a close operation. Pulseclosing is superior to conventional reclosing. It greatly reduces stress on system components, as well as voltage sags experienced by customers upstream of the fault.

IntelliRupter offers outstanding protection for 60-Hz systems through 27 kV, and 50-Hz systems through 24 kV. It provides full live-switching performance under all ice conditions . . . circuit making, circuit breaking, and pulseclosing are accomplished within the interrupters; there are no external moving parts. It has a generous continuous-current rating of 800 amperes (with a 2-ft per second wind), and a fault-interrupting rating of 12,500 amperes symmetrical. IntelliRupter is available with and without an integrated, interlocked disconnect for visible air-gap isolation.

IntelliRupter TCCs

Unlike a fuse—which has a single TCC curve pair (a minimum-melting curve and a total-clearing curve), or a relayed circuit breaker—which has two TCC curve pairs (a minimum-trip curve and a total-clearing curve for the phase elements and the ground element), IntelliRupter can have up to 25 individual TCC curve pairs for a given protection profile and direction of current flow. This great flexibility does create a complication: For each individual TCC curve, you need to specify the parameters that define it. And you need to assign that TCC curve to a specific location in the array of TCC curves that make up a profile and direction.

The assignment of a TCC curve to a specific “location” in the profile and direction array in Coordinaide is done under the “General” section at the top of the IntelliRupter screen. This array of TCC curves is referred to as the “IntelliRupter PulseCloser SetPoints Group.” It’s analogous to a library.

Once you have specified your first IntelliRupter TCC curve, just click the “DRAW/REDRAW Graph” button or the “SAVE SetPoints” button. Coordinaide will write the specified TCC curve data to the SetPoints Group file. You can view the SetPoints Group by clicking the “VIEW/LOAD SetPoints” button. Or you can specify another IntelliRupter TCC curve by returning to the “General” section at the top of the IntelliRupter screen.

The second (and subsequent) IntelliRupter TCC curves will be in the same protection profile and direction as the first TCC curve you specified. If you want to specify IntelliRupter TCC curves for a different profile and/or direction, either click the “Reset Profile and Clear SetPoints” button and start over, or load a previously saved SetPoints Group file. If you do the latter, the profile and direction fields can be changed; in this way, you can copy TCC curves from one profile and direction to a different profile and direction.

General Process for Specifying a Family of IntelliRupter TCC Curves

  1. Specify the first TCC curve based on the desired Protection Profile, Direction, Initial Trip/Test Operation, and Trip Element.
  2. Click the “DRAW/REDRAW Graph” button or the “SAVE SetPoints” button. (You can also click the “VIEW/LOAD SetPoints” button to see how the data is written to the SetPoints Group.)
  3. Click the “RETURN to TCC Page” button.
  4. Specify the next IntelliRupter TCC curve for a different Initial Trip/Test Operation, or for a different Trip Element.
  5. Click the “DRAW/REDRAW Graph” button or the “SAVE SetPoints” button.
  6. Repeat Steps 4 and 5 until all TCC curves have been specified.
  7. After you have specified the final IntelliRupter TCC curve, click the “SAVE SetPoints Group File (*.XDT)” button on the SetPoints Group Page. The file can be reloaded into Coordinaide at a later date for additional editing.

Launching Coordinaide

If you’d like to practice specifying IntelliRupter PulseCloser TCC curves, you’ll need to launch Coordinaide. Simply click on the Coordinaide link that appears in the “Support” section of the home page, or click this link to go directly to this application.

Next month’s article will discuss protection profiles and overcurrent directionality.