Third Party Protection Audit
Independent audit and verification of protection settings, coordination and relay configuration.
An independent check on protection
An independent review of protection gives operators confidence that settings are correct, selective and safe. NEWATT audits relay settings, coordination and configuration against the design and standards.
We identify gaps, mis-coordination and errors, and provide a prioritised set of corrections.
What the audit covers
Settings verification
Installed relay settings are checked against the coordination study — the client's own study or, where none exists, values we calculate independently — confirming what's actually programmed into the relays matches what the system's fault levels and equipment ratings require.
Coordination review
Selectivity and grading margins between adjacent protection devices are independently reviewed against current system conditions, since coordination schemes can drift out of alignment as loads, generation or network configuration change after the original study.
Relay configuration
Relay configuration and logic — not just the numerical settings — is audited against the intended design, checking that logic schemes, communication-based protection and interlocking are actually configured as the protection philosophy document specifies.
Safety & compliance
We verify the protection system's compliance with applicable standards and safe operating practice, checking that the installed scheme provides the safety margins the standards require, not just that it technically functions.
What you receive
Audit report
Findings are compiled into an audit report with a prioritised corrective-action list, ranking issues by the actual protection or safety gap they represent so the client can address the most consequential findings first.
Setting corrections
Corrected setting sheets are prepared where the audit identifies settings that don't match calculated requirements, in a format ready for the client's protection engineer or commissioning team to implement directly without needing to redo the underlying calculation.
Re-coordination
Where gaps are found significant enough to require it, we re-run the coordination study for the affected part of the network, delivering updated settings that restore proper grading margins rather than a partial fix that leaves the underlying coordination problem unresolved.
Standards
The audit is performed against IEEE 242 coordination principles and the specific manufacturer guidelines for the relay models installed, since setting ranges and configuration options can vary meaningfully between manufacturers even for functionally similar protection schemes.