A form of protection against faults on long-distance power lines is called distance relaying, so named because it is actually able to estimate the physical distance between the relay’s sensing transformers (PTs and CTs) and the location of the fault. In this way, it is a more sophisticated form of fault detection than simple overcurrent (e.g. 50 or 51 relay). The ANSI/IEEE number code designation for distance relaying is 21.
