Coordination of protection systems applied to the electrical network using modern techniques

Abstract

The improvement of technology in the previous several decades has enabled a significant presence of renewable power sources in the distribution network (DN). The integrating of such resources has a significant influence on DN by reducing power loss and enhancing network dependability. Aside from that, the current protection system has met coordination issues as a result of bidirectional power flow, varied types and capacities of generating sources, and variations in fault levels as a result of network operating modes (grid-connected or islanded). Moreover, there is a lack of expertise in the creation of adaptive microgrid protection schemes for relay coordination that takes into account all N-1 scenarios through the nonstandard relay characteristics. Therefore, an effective and optimum coordination strategies are required to deal with relays coordination problem. The coordination problem of the directional overcurrent relays (DOCRs) is a restricted and nonlinear optimization issue that involves determining appropriate settings to reduce relays operating time while maintaining the sensitivity and the selectivity characteristics. The protection coordination scheme takes into account relay curve settings (A and B), time dial setting (TDS) and plug setting (PS) to achieve the shortest running time and attain optimal settings. Currently, a various nontraditional optimization strategies have been presented to overcome this challenge. In this work, the coordination optimization problem (COP) of directional overcurrent relays is tackled. The optimization is carried out using a modified versions of an optimization algorithms. The performance of the proposed method is assessed using an IEEE standard test power systems and a distribution system while considering all the N1 contingencies. The results are compared to the traditional approaches as well as those obtained

by

other current optimization methods provided in the literature in order to demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed modified techniques in lowering relay operation time for optimum DOCRs coordination