Commission testing methods for protection systems

Commission testing should be designed to assure that the protection system is set and wired to operate correctly for the specific site application. This is especially important with modern micro-processor relays because of the large number of available protection and control elements and configurable logic. Commission testing also establishes a baseline of data to be used to support maintenance testing of all the protection system components of NERC PRC-005. This paper examines how and why the objective of commission testing is different from maintenance testing. Through real examples, the authors highlight the use of system study data and design documents during commission testing to verify proper protection system operation including all enabled protection elements and configured logic. Best practices for commissioning of each NERC PRC-005 protection system component and examples of real world issues found during commissioning are discussed as well as the importance of records keeping relative to PRC-005.