Abstract
This paper examines two possible approaches to improving the reliability of switchyard schemes at power plants. The first approach involves enhancing the relay protection of connections by implementing redundancy based on the “voting” principle. It is emphasized that to achieve the maximum effect in reliability improvement, redundant protection systems should be based on principles different from traditional protection methods. One potential approach to implementing protection on a novel basis is the use of reed switches, which, in addition to addressing the primary task, enables significant savings in copper, steel, and insulation materials by eliminating the need for metal-intensive current transformers. The second approach to reliability enhancement involves the mathematically justified introduction of additional circuit breakers into switchyard schemes. It is noted that this measure increases the reliability of isolating a faulted element from the scheme and reduces emergency-related energy underdelivery. As a case study, the implementation of an additional circuit breaker in the 3/2 switchyard scheme of the Rostov Nuclear Power Plant is considered. Specifically, the study examines the introduction of a supplementary circuit breaker between the transformer of each unit and its two high-voltage-side circuit breakers. A fragment of the computational tables based on Guk's tabular-logical method is presented, along with the results demonstrating a reduction in emergency energy underdelivery.