LUT Assisted Adaptive Overcurrent Protection of Reconfigurable Microgrids

Abstract

Microgrids are the key solution to handle the growing technical, environmental and economical concerns of existing power system networks. The purpose of this paper is to develop an intelligent and adaptive overcurrent protection system for a microgrid. This system is capable of monitoring, protecting and controlling the microgrid. A look up table is created and maintained at the central protection system of the microgrid, which has details of normal and faulted current in all feeders for various topologies of the microgrid system. It has the optimized values for time dial setting and operating time of relays for faults at a specific location in the reconfigured system, which is generated using Dual Simplex algorithm. Hence the Central Protection System aids in providing suitable overcurrent relay coordination to the microgrid, which may incur reduced network disconnection. The hardware prototype of the Central Protection System is realized, tested and validated on a balanced 21-bus microgrid system.