Comparative Analysis of Busbar Protection Architectures

The performance of three commonly used busbar protection architectures (centralized, decentralized, and redundant) is compared, taking into account the reliability indices (failure rate and mean time to repair) of their components. The protection system performance is analyzed, considering that the probability of successful fault clearance is given by system availability. The different architectures were applied to a double busbar with a bus coupler substation. The busbar protection architectures are described by reliability graphs, and the availabilities are computed by Monte Carlo simulation. Key performance indicators are introduced and the influence of the substation size on the protection system performance is analyzed. A comparative study is carried out, allowing to quantify the benefits of the different design options.