Adaptive Protection Scheme for a Distribution System Considering Grid-Connected and Islanded Modes of Operation

The renewable energy-based distributed generation (DG) implementation in power systems has been an active research area during the last few decades due to several environmental, economic and political factors. Although the integration of DG offers many advantages, several concerns, including protection schemes in systems with the possibility of bi-directional power flow, are raised. Thus, new protection schemes are strongly required in power systems with a significant presence of DG. In this study, an adaptive protection strategy for a distribution system with DG integration is proposed. The proposed strategy considers both grid-connected and islanded operating modes, while the adaptive operation of the protection is dynamically realized considering the availability of DG power production (related to faults or meteorological conditions) in each time step. Besides, the modular structure and fast response of the proposed strategy is validated via simulations conducted on the IEEE 13-node test system.