Updating Luma Energy’s Protection Philosophies, Settings Criteria, Short Circuit Modeling, Protection Coordination Practices, and System-Wide Settings Deployment

Amid the significant and rapid changes in the electric system, it is crucial for protection departments to ensure that the core fundamentals for deploying protective device settings remain robust and reliable. This includes an accurate short circuit model, a clear system protection philosophy, and robust processes to ensure that final settings configurations are 100% correct before field deployment.

This paper chronicles the LUMA Energy protection department’s comprehensive overhaul of its system model, protection standards, settings calculations, and coordination checks. The goal was to create an efficient, maintainable system capable of keeping pace with the modernization and rebuilding of Puerto Rico’s electric infrastructure.

Key strategies and lessons from this transformation include: - Verification of the System Short Circuit Model: Development of an automated method for transmission line constants calculation to improve efficiency and accuracy. - Modernizing the Transmission Protection Philosophy: Updates to align with best practices while considering the unique challenges of a dense meshed network and long critical lines within a small system footprint. - Automated Recalculation of System Settings: A complete recalculation of settings for the entire transmission system using an automated process that precalculated set points based on the new standard, requiring minimal engineer oversight for verification. - System-Wide Protection Coordination Study: A thorough coordination study to ensure alignment of protection elements across all upgraded terminals. - New Settings Calculation Worksheet: Implementation of an automated settings worksheet to streamline future settings creation, incorporating the transition to IEC 61850 in all upcoming full substation rebuilds within the LUMA system. - Deployment of Updated Settings: Efficient deployment of new settings across the entire transmission system, including file creation that accounted for various existing configurations to increase standardization while minimizing physical changes in the field.