Busbar Splitting Approach for Fault Level Management for System Integrity Protection Scheme

System integrity protection scheme (SIPS) is the modern day technique that is being used for the wide area protection of power system network. SIPS have been enabled for applications like voltage stability, under and over frequency protections, transient stability, etc. In this paper, a methodology for fault level management for SIPS has been developed. High fault current often leads to restriking between the plates of circuit breaker. So, in order to reduce the chance of restriking, it is necessary to reduce the fault current seen by the relay and circuit breaker. The methodology involved uses the Ward equivalent method for network reduction along with the busbar splitting methodology and check the impedance change of all boundary buses in both before and after the splitting scenarios. The boundary bus with highest change in impedance has been considered for splitting in order to reduce the fault current level. The method has been implemented for a case in IEEE 14 bus system and the simulations have been performed using ETAP.