REF615 is a dedicated feeder protection and control relay designed for the protection, control, measurement and supervision of utility substations and industrial power systems including radial, looped and meshed distribution networks with or without distributed power generation. 

REF615 is a member of ABB’s Relion® product family and part of its 615 protection and control product series. 

The 615 series relays are characterized by their compactness and withdrawable-unit design. Re-engineered from the ground up, the 615 series has been designed to unleash the full potential of the IEC 61850 standard for communication and interoperability between substation automation devices. The relay provides main protection for overhead lines and cable feeders in distribution networks. The relay is also used as backup protection in applications, where an independent and redundant protection system is required.

 Depending on the chosen standard configuration, the relay is adapted for the protection of overhead line and cable feeders in isolated neutral, resistance earthed, compensated and solidly earthed networks. Once the standard configuration relay has been given the application-specific settings, it can directly be put into service. 

The 615 series relays support a range of communication protocols including IEC 61850 with Edition 2 support, process bus according to IEC 61850-9-2 LE, IEC 60870-5-103, Modbus® and DNP3. Profibus DPV1 communication protocol is supported by using the protocol converter SPA-ZC 302.

REF615 is available with twelve alternative standard configurations. The standard signal configuration can be altered by means of the signal matrix or the graphical application functionality of the Protection and Control IED Manager PCM600. Further, the application configuration functionality of PCM600 supports the creation of multi-layer logic functions using various logical elements, including timers and flip-flops. By combining protection functions with logic function blocks, the relay configuration can be adapted to userspecific application requirements.

The relay is delivered from the factory with default connections described in the functional diagrams for binary inputs, binary outputs, function-to-function connections and alarm LEDs. Some of the supported functions in REF615 must be added with the Application Configuration tool to be available in the Signal Matrix tool and in the relay. The positive measuring direction of directional protection functions is towards the outgoing feeder.

Standard configurations

Non-directional overcurrent and directional earth-fault protection A 

Non-directional overcurrent and directional earth-fault protection and circuit-breaker condition monitoring (RTD option) B 

Non-directional overcurrent and earth-fault protection C 

Non-directional overcurrent and earth-fault protection and circuit-breaker condition monitoring (RTD option) D 

Non-directional overcurrent and directional earth-fault protection, voltage-based measurements and circuitbreaker condition monitoring (RTD option) E 

Directional overcurrent and earth-fault protection, voltage-based protection and measurements, and circuitbreaker condition monitoring (RTD option) F 

Directional overcurrent and earth-fault protection, voltage-based protection and measurements, and circuitbreaker condition monitoring (sensor inputs and optional synchro-check with IEC 61850-9-2 LE) G 

Non-directional overcurrent and earth-fault protection, voltage and frequency based protection and measurements, synchro-check and circuit-breaker condition monitoring (RTD option) H 

Directional overcurrent and earth-fault protection, voltage and frequency based protection and measurements, synchro-check and circuit-breaker condition monitoring (optional power quality and RTD option) J 

Directional and non-directional overcurrent and earth-fault protection, high-impedance restricted earth-fault protection, voltage and frequency based protection and measurements, synchro-check and circuit-breaker condition monitoring (optional power quality and fault locator) K 

Directional and non-directional overcurrent and earth-fault protection with multifrequency neutral admittance, voltage, frequency and power based protection and measurements, and circuit-breaker condition monitoring (sensor inputs, optional power quality, fault locator, interconnetion protection and synchro-check with IEC 61850-9-2 LE) L 

Directional and non-directional overcurrent and earth-fault protection with multifrequency neutral admittance, voltage, frequency and power based protection and measurements, high-impedance differential protection, synchro-check and circuit-breaker condition monitoring (optional power quality, fault locator and interconnection protection) N