Power Generation Loss Exposes Protection Selectivity Problem
Both 660 MW JIPL units lost their evacuation path after a current-transformer failure triggered protection that also opened healthy connections. Around 1,107 MW of Power Generation remained unavailable for seven hours and 26 minutes. The initial busbar fault was cleared, but the existing Protection System opened tie breakers serving both units, extending the impact beyond the failed equipment. JIPL has changed the hard-wired logic so relevant breakers operate before breaker-failure protection during a future main-bus fault. The correction directly addresses the identified problem, but its effectiveness depends on testing the revised selectivity, relay operation and breaker-failure timing under a comparable sequence. The event demonstrates how a single instrument failure can become a major Grid Reliability event when protection does not isolate only the affected equipment. EnergylineIndia.com tracks these developments.
