A Comparison of Protection based ARC Flash Mitigation Techniques

Reducing the exposure and risk to arc flash in medium voltage switchgear is an important mission for industrial facilities. Several arc flash mitigation techniques are available using modern microprocessor-based protective relays. This paper will review and compare various protective relay based applications such as zone selective interlocking (ZSI) scheme, high impedance bus differential protection scheme, low impedance bus differential protection scheme, light and current sensing scheme, and maintenance / alternate setting scheme.