Optimal Protection Coordination for Microgrids With Grid-Connected and Islanded Capability Waleed K. A. Najy, H. H.

Zeineldin, Member, IEEE, and Wei Lee Woon, Member, IEEE

In this paper, a microgrid protection scheme that relies on optimally sizing fault current limiters and optimally setting directional overcurrent relays is proposed.
The problem has been formulated as a constrained nonlinear programming problem and is solved using the genetic algorithm with the static penalty constrainthandling technique. This paper proposes the use of FCL, in series with the utility, in conjunction with directional OCRs to solve the protection coordination problem in distribution systems equipped with CSG with dual configuration capability.

FORMULATION OF THE PROTECTION COORDINATION PROBLEM

The objective is to minimize the coordination times of all relays, while maintaining the conditions of protection coordination. Two system configurations (grid-connected and islanded) will be considered in the problem. The objective function is taken to be the sum, T, of the coordination times of all relays, which needs to be minimized as follows:

where c is the system configuration identifier, with C being the number of configurations considered, i is the fault location identifier, with the total number of fault locations investigated being N, and j is the relay identifier, with the total number of relays being M. The superscript p refers to primary relays, while bk refers to backup relay k, with K being the number of backup relays for each primary.

Also, the coordination condition needs to be satisfied, which is that a minimum gap in time between the operation of primary and backup relays, known as the coordination time interval (CTI), must be maintained. The following set of constraints is defined:

The value of Ipimin is chosen such that it is larger than the rated load current by a significant margin. Therefore, the following constraints are further defined:

The modified problem will involve the use of an FCL installed at the grid side. Hence, the following constraint is introduced:

Genetic Algorithm Implementation

Since this is a minimization problem, violations in the constraints must be calculated such that they are positive. Thus, the problem can be transformed into Minimize Z = f(X, Y ) + 1. max(0,X Y ) +2. max(0,X) + 3. max(0,Y )

Schematic of 9-bus test system

Flowchart of GA implementation

The results show that it is possible to have one optimal relay setting that satisfies both microgrid modes of operation with the proposed scheme. In addition, without the FCL, it was found that it is difficult to set the relays optimally to satisfy both microgrid modes of operation. It may not be effective in a system that is dominated by converter-based DG and energy storage devices due to the low fault current.