True or False: It is better to leave a substation circuit breaker open and drop an entire circuit than to have a fuse blow and lose a small number of customers.

• A. True
• B. False
• C. Not sure
• D. Both

Answer: (B)

In distribution protection, the goal is to isolate faults with the smallest possible outage area. Fuses are designed to blow quickly at fault current, which localizes the problem to the protected section and minimizes how many customers lose power. Deliberately leaving a substation circuit breaker open to drop an entire circuit would unnecessarily cut power to all customers on that circuit, creating a much larger outage and longer restoration time. Protective schemes are designed to clear faults while keeping service to as many customers as possible, so the idea of preferring a full circuit outage over a localized fuse operation goes against standard practice. False.