Enhancing Microgrid Protection Through Adaptive Decentralized Relay Coordination: A Solution to Blinding and Sympathetic Tripping

Integrating Distributed Energy Resources into microgrids modifies the network’s system parameters and causes it to exhibit behaviour, particularly during fault conditions. This is due to the greater variations in current direction and magnitude. When a microgrid runs in autonomous mode, D...

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Main Authors: Sujatha Balasubramanian, J. Preetha Roselyn, Prabha Sundaravadivel
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
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Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11104126/
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author Sujatha Balasubramanian
J. Preetha Roselyn
Prabha Sundaravadivel
author_facet Sujatha Balasubramanian
J. Preetha Roselyn
Prabha Sundaravadivel
author_sort Sujatha Balasubramanian
collection DOAJ
description Integrating Distributed Energy Resources into microgrids modifies the network’s system parameters and causes it to exhibit behaviour, particularly during fault conditions. This is due to the greater variations in current direction and magnitude. When a microgrid runs in autonomous mode, Distributed Generators result in a reduced short circuit current compared to a system working in grid-connected mode. Microgrid protection issues, namely, blinding of protection, sympathetic tripping, and bidirectional power flow, occur in the power network under such circumstances. The impact of microgrid protection issues and changes in fault current leads to variations of overcurrent relay settings, their operating time and relay pair coordination. This paper presents an adaptive decentralized protection technique for ensuring the coordination of overcurrent relays in a microgrid network, even under situations of uncertainty. This method involves estimating the relay settings in the microgrid without considering DG and establishing relay coordination. The fault currents of the system, including DG, are calculated using the Thevenin equivalent circuit. These currents are derived from the perspective of the relay by analyzing the current and voltage measured at relay position before system fault. The proposed adaptive decentralized protection is developed and implemented in an IEEE-modified 9-bus and 14-bus system. The proposed method of coordination is compared against the conventional relay coordination method. The simulation studies are carried out in the MATLAB simulation and Digsilent Powerfactory 2023 version. The simulation results demonstrate effectiveness of proposed decentralized adaptive protection strategy in addressing all protection issues in the DG-integrated microgrid network.
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spelling doaj-art-a432675a08ed45e095f178eebd548e242025-08-20T03:41:52ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362025-01-011313866013867510.1109/ACCESS.2025.359409911104126Enhancing Microgrid Protection Through Adaptive Decentralized Relay Coordination: A Solution to Blinding and Sympathetic TrippingSujatha Balasubramanian0J. Preetha Roselyn1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6752-7371Prabha Sundaravadivel2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5045-2468Department of EEE, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, IndiaDepartment of EEE, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, IndiaDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Center for Robotics and Intelligent Systems (CeRIS), The University of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, TX, USAIntegrating Distributed Energy Resources into microgrids modifies the network’s system parameters and causes it to exhibit behaviour, particularly during fault conditions. This is due to the greater variations in current direction and magnitude. When a microgrid runs in autonomous mode, Distributed Generators result in a reduced short circuit current compared to a system working in grid-connected mode. Microgrid protection issues, namely, blinding of protection, sympathetic tripping, and bidirectional power flow, occur in the power network under such circumstances. The impact of microgrid protection issues and changes in fault current leads to variations of overcurrent relay settings, their operating time and relay pair coordination. This paper presents an adaptive decentralized protection technique for ensuring the coordination of overcurrent relays in a microgrid network, even under situations of uncertainty. This method involves estimating the relay settings in the microgrid without considering DG and establishing relay coordination. The fault currents of the system, including DG, are calculated using the Thevenin equivalent circuit. These currents are derived from the perspective of the relay by analyzing the current and voltage measured at relay position before system fault. The proposed adaptive decentralized protection is developed and implemented in an IEEE-modified 9-bus and 14-bus system. The proposed method of coordination is compared against the conventional relay coordination method. The simulation studies are carried out in the MATLAB simulation and Digsilent Powerfactory 2023 version. The simulation results demonstrate effectiveness of proposed decentralized adaptive protection strategy in addressing all protection issues in the DG-integrated microgrid network.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11104126/Microgrid protectionadaptive-overcurrent protectionovercurrent relays coordinationprimary and backup protection
spellingShingle Sujatha Balasubramanian
J. Preetha Roselyn
Prabha Sundaravadivel
Enhancing Microgrid Protection Through Adaptive Decentralized Relay Coordination: A Solution to Blinding and Sympathetic Tripping
IEEE Access
Microgrid protection
adaptive-overcurrent protection
overcurrent relays coordination
primary and backup protection
title Enhancing Microgrid Protection Through Adaptive Decentralized Relay Coordination: A Solution to Blinding and Sympathetic Tripping
title_full Enhancing Microgrid Protection Through Adaptive Decentralized Relay Coordination: A Solution to Blinding and Sympathetic Tripping
title_fullStr Enhancing Microgrid Protection Through Adaptive Decentralized Relay Coordination: A Solution to Blinding and Sympathetic Tripping
title_full_unstemmed Enhancing Microgrid Protection Through Adaptive Decentralized Relay Coordination: A Solution to Blinding and Sympathetic Tripping
title_short Enhancing Microgrid Protection Through Adaptive Decentralized Relay Coordination: A Solution to Blinding and Sympathetic Tripping
title_sort enhancing microgrid protection through adaptive decentralized relay coordination a solution to blinding and sympathetic tripping
topic Microgrid protection
adaptive-overcurrent protection
overcurrent relays coordination
primary and backup protection
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11104126/
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