PROTECTION OF DOMESTIC SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC
BASED MICROGRID
M.P Nthontho*, S.P Chowdhury*, S. Winberg*, S. Chowdhury*
*University of Cape Town,South Africa
monontsi.nthontho@uct.ac.za | sp.chowdhury@uct.ac.za | simon.winberg@uct.ac.za | sunetra.chowdhury@uct.ac.za
Keywords: Differential protection, solar PV microgrid.
Abstract
A large-scale implementation of distributed generation (DG)
for households involves each house generating its energy
from photovoltaic (PV) cells. This approach is particularly
suitable in rural electrification projects where demand is
relatively low and yet grid connection is costly. A meshed
microgrid is an attractive solution for energy generation and
sharing in domestic electrification projects. Solar PV systems
located on different houses can be interconnected together
into a meshed microgrid. This interconnection creates an
integrated system that can be treated as a single DG. While
they remain autonomous, the systems can operate as one
microgrid. This approach provides a more reliable and robust
grid as the systems can supplement each other. However,
protection and control in a meshed power network setup is a
challenge. This is because a meshed microgrid has more
interconnections and interfaces compared to radial
architecture power grid. This is further complicated by effects
of DG on power quality, such as transients: voltage sags and
swells, under and over-current faults amongst other
difficulties. The challenges necessitate robust protection
schemes supported by effective control and fault location
identification facilities. This paper discusses implementation
of islanded or grid-connected microgrids formed by solar
systems installed in homes. The paper discusses microgrid
protection, adaptive control and fault location identification.
In grid-connected mode, power flow in microgrids is bi-
directional. This characteristic rules out many of the
traditional protection schemes based on current direction.
Thus differential current protection scheme is the focus of this
paper. In conclusion, this scheme overcomes many protection
problems including the low fault current nature of
conventional inverters.
1 Introduction
Distributed generation systems (DGs) forming a microgrid
and their integration into the utility grid is a popular topic in
the renewable energy research sphere. The main advantages
of microgrids are environmentally friendly distributed power
generation technologies and peak demand shaving [1] [2] [3].
Nevertheless, DGs have been found to pose unwanted
disturbances on utility power distribution networks [1] [3] [4].
The disturbances can occur during a change of operation
mode ± going from grid connected to islanded mode. Most
common disorders are transients, voltage sags and swells,
over-voltage and under-voltage as well as under-current and
over-current faults [5]. It was in response to these problems
that power electronic systems were employed to mitigate
faults and to coordinate renewable sources and loads. This
formed an almost self-healing network called a microgrid.
Proposing an optimal technique that implements adaptive
control of the power electronic systems used in the interface
protection of microgrids is the aim of this paper.
Adaptive control is achieved by protection schemes
appropriate to microgrid network constraints and
requirements supported by communication networks. This
technique leads to the self-healing feature in microgrids. It is
therefore the focus of this paper to review protection schemes
of distribution networks integrated with microgrids.
Due to the bi-directional power flow characteristic of
microgrids, conventional protection schemes used in radial
architecture grids are unlikely to be applicable for meshed
microgrid [6]. Furthermore, conventional protection schemes
used in radial distribution networks use load distribution,
direction and magnitude of fault current, and characteristic
architecture of the network. As aforementioned, there is no
predetermined direction of flow of energy in meshed grid-
connected microgrids. A simulation performed in [6] shows
that due to the jittering magnitude of fault current, traditional
current protection scheme becomes inapplicable in
microgrids. Fault current swings frequently and unpredictably
as the system changes from grid connected to islanded mode
and vice versa. Conventional inverter systems used with DGs
have very low fault current. In islanded mode, the fault
current is two times less than the nominal operative value set
in conventional relays [4] [7]. This current requires very
sensitive relays and may not cause a trip with conventional
relays [4] [8]. Nevertheless, installing sensitive relays is not a
viable answer as these can lead to instability of the system by
responding to spurious currents. In addition, in grid connected
operation, even load distribution is not predetermined since
the microgrid can either be feeding only the local load or
feeding the local load and the utility grid. It is therefore
mandatory to have protection and control systems that adapt
to the prevailing situation in the network. Differential current
protection mechanism is seen as a plausible solution for
current control as will be discussed later in this paper.
2 Adaptive Control
There are two types of control: hard programmed control and
adaptive control ( often referred as knowledge based control).
Hard programmed control (also called hard wired control)
makes use of static relays. Static relays are programmed with
hard-wired settings such as values for over-current protection.
Shortcomings of fixing these values have already been
indicated above. On the contrary, knowledge based control
makes use of intelligent sensors and advanced communication
networks built in intelligent electronic devices (IEDs). The
IEDs have sensors that determine real-time conditions of the
network and communicate the information to the control
centre which invokes smart algorithms that determine the
protected unit to isolate. In this way, control measures adapt
to the situation at hand. In addition, this suggests that a
decentralized or agent based control system is needed. The
agent based system is part of the supervisory control and data
acquisition (SCADA) system.
Communication networks on which the SCADA runs is
important as emphasised in Section 1. Wireless mobile
broadband communication networks may be used for LAN of
IEDs and internet as the backhaul for linking the IEDs and the
central control agent. Security, reliability and speed of the
communication network are of critical importance in ensuring
integrity of control commands data transmitted. The
commands must also reach their destination in a timely
manner. In the past, wireless networks were not popular in
critical applications because of reliability issues caused by
jitter in wireless connectivity. Nevertheless, as new research
shows, connection oriented sessions, and use of cognitive
radios [9], are solutions that can improve reliability. A vital
task that the communication network will perform is
coordination of the buses. This coordination is crucial in
identifying faulted sections of the network [6].
Identifying a faulted section is an important function an
adaptive control system must perform. The issue here is that
when a fault occurs on a certain line connecting two buses,
other relays around the fault may also detect the fault and
want to trip. A challenge is therefore to identify the exact line
that has faulted, attempt to apply automatic re-closers on it; or
to isolate only that line in a timely manner to avoid chain trips
of other breakers to avoid total blackout in a protected area.
This problem is even more difficult in a meshed microgrid.
This remainder of this paper is organised as follows. First an
overview of a domestic photovoltaic (PV) system is
presented. A discussion of the proposed protection scheme is
then given. A differential current technique proposed for
identification of a faulted section of the network is also
discussed. Conclusions are then drawn from the review and
the findings from the simulations.
3 System overview
Installation of photovoltaic panels can provide an effective
means to complement energy needs of households. Excess
energy that may result can then be sold back to the utility grid
depending on the installed capacity. A solar system can be
installed in many configurations that give different power
output suitable for various user needs. A typical single solar
panel produces a peak output voltage of 17 volts. Two panels
connected in series can to produce an output of 24V. To get
more power at the load (usually the battery bank), the panels
can be connected in parallel [10]. In larger systems, the
disadvantage of a parallel configuration is that thicker wires
will be required because of the larger current. Figure 1 below
shows how the system is connected up for domestic
installation. The system consists of seven main components:
solar panels, charge controller, AC breaker panel, a meter, a
circuit breaker, battery bank and a power inverter. There is an
option of integrating an AC generator or connecting to the
grid 7KH FKDUJH FRQWUROOHU¶V PDLQ IXQFWLRQ LV WR UHJXODWH
battery charging to ensure that the batteries do not get over-
charged. The inverter converts DC voltage from the batteries
to AC voltage. E.g. it can convert 12V from the batteries to
120V AC. The inverter can also act as a point of common
coupling (PCC) linking the system to the utility grid via the
AC breaker panel as shown in the figure. In grid-connected
mode the inverter acts as a charge controller and charges the
battery bank with power from the utility grid. This is where
the bi-directional nature of power flow in microgrids is
encountered.
Figure 1: Overview of a domestic solar system [10], et al
Here onwards, this system will be alternatively referred to as
a single domestic solar system. In this paper, we assume that
the system is piloted in a new modern housing area that has
broadband connectivity (e.g. wireless general packet radio
service (GPRS) or 3G). Households are also assumed to be of
similar income group hence their energy requirements
relatively equal. In this case, each household has one solar
system. In an ideal setup, each household would have its own
PV array supplying its own load of batteries. Therefore each
household would become an autonomous microgrid on its
own. However, to save on wiring and protection equipment,
and to achieve a more reliable system through redundancy,
two to three households may be regarded as a single load.
Inherent redundancy in this set-up will ensure that when one
DG unit faults, the others will share its load [3]. Figure 2
below shows an abstracted view of the envisaged meshed
microgrid.
The system shown in Figure 2 consists of abstracted solar
systems on households, IEDs, bus bars and sections of the
main utility grid. The solar panels are configured to act as a
single source charging one battery bank and feeding or being
fed from a single bus bar. This retains autonomy of the
system and simplifies the network, unlike situations where
each household is regarded as a separate source. Section 4
below looks at a protection scheme for this microgrid.
Figure 2: Structure of the proposed meshed microgrid
4 Protection Scheme
A power grid is vulnerable to contingencies caused by
abnormal variations in the characteristics of supplied power
as introduced in Section 1. A good practise is to detect,
mitigate and recover from such incidents to continue service
provision even when contingencies occur. Various protection
schemes that deal with these contingencies have been
proposed in literature. Some of this new protection schemes
are: abc-dq0 transformation, THD protection, voltage
restrained over-current relays with inverse time delay, and
addition of supplementary current sources [11]. The abc-dq
monitors voltages on the dq axis which change during a fault.
With THD protection, three phase voltages on from the
inverter are Fourier transformed for analysis to determine
harmonics. There are more harmonics in the voltage signals
when there is a fault. Voltage retrained method uses relays
that recalibrate automatically when a fault changes the normal
voltage levels. This allows low current faults to be detected.
The last method which is addition of supplementary current
sources is the arguably the simplest. It was mentioned earlier
that low fault current is one of the unique problematic
characteristics of microgrids. Hence additional current
sources boost the fault current so that it can be detected by
traditional relays. Nonetheless, this will not be discussed
further in this paper as focus is on differential current
protection.
The most important aspect to be discussed in this section is
how to detect a contingency when it occurs. Mitigation of a
contingency, which follows its detection, is a function of
adaptive control facilitated by communication networks.
A meshed microgrid protection is achieved by protecting each
grid element individually. Grid elements are classified into
protected zones or protected units. These units are: a line, a
source, a bus and a load [6]. The zone boundaries are
protection units such as relays and circuit breakers. In the
introduction, we established that protection units make use of
sensors that detect abnormalities in the characteristics of the
power flowing. Also established was that these characteristics
are different in meshed microgrids to those known from radial
power grids. Nevertheless, in this paper, we propose the use
of direction and magnitude of fault current detected at point
of common contact relay (PCC) as a means of telling whether
the detected fault occurred within the microgrid or on the
main grid. If a fault occurred on the main grid, fault current
will be negative with reference to the microgrid and vice
versa [1]. Knowing whether the fault is within the microgrid
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operating in grid-connected mode. It will assist in
determining the islanding necessity. Hence prevent undesired
service interruptions especially when the fault does not affect
the microgrid directly.
5 Protection Scheme Design
Differential current protection scheme is effective in
situations where many traditional protection methods fail.
This scheme seems to be robust against the dynamics of a
microgrid such as low fault current condition brought by
power inverters. The over-current protection scheme suggests
use of directional over-current relays installed at each end of a
protected unit or phase line. For network protection, this
method calculates differential current between two ends of a
line [12]. Magnitude and direction of fault current
information suffices to provide protection against low and
high impedance faults [6]. Zero status of the differential
current means that the current exiting the line is equal to the
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safe condition for the network. If the value of differential
current is not zero, this condition suggests a problem in the
network. Nevertheless, this scheme will not be effective on its
own due to the fact that DGs frequently connect and
disconnect from the network bringing uncertainty in the relay
settings [4]. Many researchers have therefore come to a
conclusion that knowledge based differential current
protection (instead of programmed protection schemes) is the
solution that meets many of the dynamics of the microgrid.
To adapt to the dynamic characteristics of grid connected
microgrid, a new advanced differential protection referred to
as wide-area differential current protection system is
proposed [8] [12]. This system was described in Section 2.
The system consists of a network of IEDs and digital
differential relays. IEDs implement grid control algorithms on
programmable logic circuits and send control actions to phases were monitored by PV-B1 and B1-Grid scopes as
digital relays. As a result, communication networks are very illustrated in the figures below.
important in a successful implementation of this adaptive
protection scheme. Section 6 describes simulations of a grid
connected PV system performed to demonstrate protection of
a single point of common contact (PCC).

6 Simulation of a PCC Protection

A grid connected solar PV system built on Matlab Simulink
was used for the demonstration. In this simulation, focus was
placed on protecting a single PCC. The PCC is represented
by bus bar B1 illustrated in Figure 3 below. In the proposed
meshed micro-grid, there will be many of these PCCs. Similar Figure 3: Monitoring current sensors around a PCC ± no
principle of differential protection combined with wide area fault condition
monitoring, protection and control can be applied to
coordinate communication between the PCCs for protection
of the entire grid.
Figure 3 below is a picture of the grid connected solar PV
system used. The system consists of the irradiance model, PV
model, inverter model with maximum power point tracking
(MPPT) and a bus/sub-station model acting as the PCC. The
grid basically has two sections: the microgrid section and the
main grid section. The simulation therefore monitors current
in these two sections.

Figure 4: Monitoring current sensors around a PCC ± fault

Figure 5: Matlab Simulink model of the grid-connected
solar PV system
The simulation aims to demonstrate the unpredictability of
direction and magnitude of current across the PCC. Hence
this shows that there is dire need for the proposed adaptive
protection schemes that adopt to the continuously changing
situation of the current across the PCC.
The simulation modelled two scenarios: 1) no-fault and 2) a
three-phase fault scenario. The no-fault scenario modelled the
normal operation of the network. In Figure 4 below, the two
three-phase V-I measurement units around the bus bar
represent functions of IEDs. The IEDs were simply used to
measure and monitor current flowing across B1. Thus
measurements of the state of current between the solar PV
microgrid and the PCC (bus bar B1) and between the PCC
and the main grid were taken. The currents on the three
condition
The second scenario represented a situation where there is a
fault in the PV system side of the grid. This situation was
modelled by a three-phase fault was injected in the PV side so
that it is detected by the IDEs before the bus on the micro-
grid. Figure 5 shows a snapshot of the second scenario.
7 Results and Discussions
The purpose of the simulations described above was to
illustrate how the state of a grid connected microgrid can be
monitored at the PCC. Monitoring the current flowing across
the PCC (B1 in this case) is the basis of the proposed
differential current based WAMPAC. The results described in
this section were captured from the two scenarios introduced
above. The first set of results show the state of current
between the PV microgrid and B1 and between B1 and the
main grid when there is no fault in the network. The second
set illustrates the state of phase currents when there is a three-
phase fault in the network. Figures 6a and 6b depict the plots
of the phase current in the two sections of the network. Figure
6a shows phase currents in the microgrid sections while
Figure 6b shows the phase currents in the main grid section of
the network.
 Figure 7a: Phase currents measured between the microgrid Figure 7b: Phase currents measured between the
and the bus bar microgrid and B1

Figure 6b: Phase currents measured between the bus bar Figure 6a: Phase currents measured between the
and the main grid microgrid and B1
Figures 7a and 7b present the second scenario where there is a after 30 seconds of the simulation time. This irregularity in
fault in the network. In the same way as in the first scenario the phase currents detected across the PCC suggests an
described above, phase currents were monitored from both abnormality in the power grid.
sides of the PCC and plotted as shown below.
Speed of the communication networks determines
The graph of Figure 7a above shows that there is a huge surge responsiveness of the protection system. Central microgrid
of current on each of the phases. The current surge dies down control computer system sends commands to relays,
to zero before 0.1 min of the simulation. After the 0.1 min attempting to apply automatic reclosers as the first line of
mark, the current increases slowly until it stabilizes for the protection. If this fault correction fails, protection algorithms
further 24 seconds. At 0.7 min mark, it dies until reaching will then locate and identify the fault using information from
almost zero at 0.8 min mark. the current sensors plus time-stamped GPS coordinates. The
faulty line/phase will then be isolated.
The similarity between Figures 6a and 6b, shows that the
phase currents across B1 are equal in magnitude and have
similar direction across the PCC when there is no fault in the 8 Conclusions and Future Work
network. The result LV LQ KDUPRQ\ ZLWK .LUFKKRII¶V FXUUHQW This paper introduced the concept of distributed generation as
law. This shows a pleasant condition in the network. a means to mitigate the concerning environmental changes.
However, Figures 7a and 7b give a different picture. There is This was motivated as a way of reducing dependence on
no similarity between the figures. This shows that the IED on fossil fuel generated power by supplementing it and shaving
the microgrid side and the IED on main grid section detected peak demand. Furthermore, this is expected to have an impact
different current readings. Hence the difference between the of delaying need for costly investment into transmission lines
magnitudes of the phase currents across the PCC will not be expansions. Domestic solar PV DGs were the focus of the
]HUR7KXVWKLVFRQGLWLRQLVQRWLQKDUPRQ\ZLWK.LUFKKRII¶V paper. This was looked at from the perspective of a small,
law. The sensor on the main grid side only detects current independent and intelligent system called microgrid.
However, the introduction recognised and acknowledged the
negative effects of integrating DGs with the main grid. The
dynamic changes power production capacity of solar PV
which dictates the direction and magnitude current flowing in
the grid was seen as the driving force behind the effects. This
effects result in an unstable grid with properties that challenge
the existing and well known grid protection techniques.
New microgrid protection schemes that were highlighted in
this paper were proposed as a result these requirements.
Protection schemes such as: THD protection, addition of
current sources, abc-dq0 transformation and the voltage
constraint methods were highlighted. Moreover, adaptive
monitoring and control was introduced as the most viable
technique that caters for the unique demands of microgrids
such as solar PV microgrids. The adaptive monitoring and
control technique discussed is called differential current
protection based wide area monitoring and protection scheme.
Regardless of problems identified, the paper further refined
its scope to focus on differential current protection scheme. A
simulation was performed on Matlab Simulink to demonstrate
how this scheme works. The simulation showed the essence
of differential protection scheme which entailed current
sensors placed across the protected unit and using the state of
the current detected by the sensor to determine whether there
is a fault or not. Also discussed was that the information from
the sensor will then be used as input to protection and control
algorithms executed by centralized control and protection
computer systems.
The simulation results presented in Section 7, the following
conclusions can be drawn. Differential protection scheme is
the simplest and effective protection scheme for microgrid
protection. It is reliant on the stability of the supporting
communication networks. It makes use of IEDs and sensors.
Because of these features, protection and control decisions are
inherently performed from a central computer system.
Further work leading on from these initial experiments can
focus on extending the model of the grid-connected PV
system. The extension can add complexity and help further
understanding of the dynamics of current in a meshed PV
microgrid. Furthermore, as highlighted before,
communication networks are vital for the protection scheme
discussed in this paper. Therefore, more work needs to be
done to find an optimal networking solution to coordinate the
IEDs.
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