Konferans bildirisi Açık Erişim

OPTIMAL OVERCURRENT RELAY COORDINATION IN DISTRIBUTION NETWORKS USING PATH FINDER ALGORITHM

2024    Mert Bekir Atsever; Mehmet Hakan Hocaoğlu

Distribution networks play an important role in delivering the generated energy to the end user. It is designed
to ensure an uninterrupted energy supply. Many undesirable events occur during the operation of distribution
networks. Some of these events are faults. High amplitude currents and/or voltages are observed during faults
in the distribution network. In both cases, it causes problems in the healthy operation of the distribution
network. Especially during three-phase faults, high amplitude fault currents create dangerous stresses in the
system elements and surrounding environment. Therefore, the fault must be isolated from the mains selectively
and as quickly as possible. Optimum overcurrent relay coordination is essential for fast isolation and selective
protection. Overcurrent relays are widely used in the detection of three-phase faults. Overcurrent relays
basically have two setting parameters. The first tuning parameter is amplitude, and the second is time. Total
relay operating times may be improved by optimizing the setting values of the overcurrent relays. For this
reason, overcurrent relay coordination is designed by researchers as an optimization problem with high
constraint functions. In this study, optimum overcurrent relay coordination is realized on a real distribution
network. Modeling of the 154/33 kV substation was carried out with the data taken from the field. Three-phase
fault simulations were performed using the EMTP-ATP Draw program. The objective function is constructed
with fault current information and relay catalog information. Constraint functions have been added according
to the network regulation. The objective function was created with both linear and non-linear programming
methods. For the solution of both programming methods, the Pathfinder algorithm, which was newly
introduced to the literature, was used. It is clearly seen in the results that the Pathfinder algorithm offers a fast
and optimum solution. Therefore, it has been shown that the Pathfinder algorithm can be used for overcurrent
relay coordination.