Protection System in Smart Grid

Dr. Partha Kayal

Department of Electrical Engineering
National Institute of Technology, Silchar

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Microgrid

As microgrid is the integral component of smart grid, protection

issues of microgrid improvise protection aspects of smart grid.

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Protection Issues in Microgrid

Dynamics in level of
fault currents

Bi-directional fault
current

Protection Issues

False tripping

Blinding of Protection

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Dynamics in level of fault currents

• The penetration of DER alters the level of fault current.

• Also, the magnitude of fault current is altered based on the modes of operation
of the microgrid .
• This reduces the sensitivity of the protection devices.

Magnitude of fault current during (a) grid-connected mode (b) Islanded mode

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Bi-directional fault current

• The penetration of DERs not only changes the level of fault current but also
alters the direction.
• Hence, the traditional unidirectional over current relays are unable to provide
safety protection for microgrids.

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False tripping

• This issue arises when a DER present in a healthy feeder contributes for a fault
occurring on a adjacent feeder .
• when fault current contribution of G1 exceeds current setting, then relay1 will
be tripped before the operation of faulted feeder relay2.
• As a result, the unnecessary power interruption will occur for loads connected
to healthy feeder1.

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Blinding of Protection

• The utility grid contribution to the fault current is reduced due to contribution
from DG sources.
• As a result, the feeder relay is unable to detect the fault condition .
• This phenomenon is known as “Blinding of Protection”.

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Example of complete protection system

The example microgrid system is a 4-bus distribution network with synchronous

based DER (SBDER), Inverter based DER (IBDER) and having switches (S1-S3)
and relays (R1-R6).

The relays selected to protect against the fault at point ‘F’ in figure are as follows
• Dynamics in level of fault currents:- R5
• False tripping:- R4 or R3
• Blinding of protection:- R1

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Microgrid structure

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Modes of Operation of Microgrid

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Adaptive protection scheme for microgrid

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Sequence current based adaptive protection scheme

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Description of adaptive protection approach

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Rule base for directional unit

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 Digital Relays for Smart Grid

Evolution of Relay

Electromechanical type Static type Digital relay

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Benefits of Digital Relay

• Cost
• Self checking
• Reliable-accurate
• Auto-reclosing
• Functional flexibility-multifunctional
(flexibility in adjusting the setting, say for differential relay CT mismatch by
incorporating a proper multiplication)
• System integration
• Adaptive relaying
• Data storage-fault locating, diagnostics
• space

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Subsystem of Digital Relay

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Inside of Digital Relay

• The Random Access Memory (RAM) holds the

input sample data as they are brought in and
processed.
• In addition, RAM is needed as a scratch pad to
be used during relay algorithm execution.
• The Read Only Memory (ROM) or Programmable
Read Only Memory (PROM) is used to store the
programs permanently.
• The Erasable PROM (EPROM) is needed for
storing certain parameters (such as the relay
settings) which may be changed from time to
time, but once set must remain fixed, even if the
power supply to the computer is interrupted.

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Organization of multiple signals in digital relay

Single ADC with multiplexed input

Sample and hold added to each channel

Separate ADC for each channel

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Sampling process

• If the phasors for signals x(t) and y(t) are computed from their samples
beginning at instants tx and ty, the references for the two phasors will differ
from each other by an angle θ.

  (t x  t y ) 2T rad

where T is the fundamental frequency period of the signal. If the difference

between tx and ty is known, then the phase angle between the two references
is also known.
• All computations become much simpler if θ is zero (for simultaneous sampling).
The samples of different signals could be combined directly.

Time (s) 20
Parameters of relay’s performance test

% of Reliability ={(number of correct trips)/(number of desired trips + number of

incorrect trips)}100

% of dependability ={(number of correct trips)/(number of desired trips)}100

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Islanding Detection of Microgrid

A Condition in which a portion of an area Electric Power Systems (EPS) is energized

solely by one or more local EPSs through the associated PCCs (Point Of
Common Coupling) while that portion of the area EPS is electrically separated
from the rest of the area EPS.

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Failure to detect unintentional islanding events impose

• Degradation in power quality (voltage and frequency instability)

• Malfunction of protective devices
• Equipment damage
• Threats to personal or crewman safety

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Islanding situation

• Power Mismatch:
P  Pload  PDG  PGrid
Q  Qload  QDG  QGrid

Where Pload is load real power, Q load is load reactive power, PDG is DER real power
generation, Q DG is DER reactive power generation, Pgrid is Real power taken or
given to grid, Qgrid is Reactive power taken or given to grid.
• Since after islanding Pgrid and Qgrid are absent, there will be deficit or excess of
either real power or reactive power which leads to voltage, frequency, phase
angle variations.

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Non-detection zone

• As per IEEE1547 standard all DERs are to be equipped with under

voltage/overvoltage relays and under frequency and over frequency relays.
• Set point for voltage relays: OVR-1.1pu; UVR-0.88.
• Set point for frequency relays: OFR-60.5; UFR-59.3
• The presence of real and reactive power mismatch leads to change in voltage
and frequency in islanded microgrid.
• The relays fail to detect, if the power mismatches are not sufficient to drive the
voltage and frequency relays beyond the set points after islanding.
• Hence NDZ can be defined as Zone of real and reactive power mismatches at
which if islanding occurs, the corresponding relays fail to identify the islanding
condition.

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IEEE 1547 standard for islanding detection of microgrid

Limit of Trip time limit

parameters
Voltage V < 0.5 pu 0.16 s
0.5 < V< 0.88 pu 2.0 s
0.88 <V< 1.1 pu Normal operation
1.1 <V< 1.2 pu 1.0 s
1.2 <V pu 0.16 s
Frequency 59.3 to 60.5 Hz Normal operation
otherwise 0.16s
Current THD% < 5% always

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 Islanding Detection Techniques(IDTs)

Methods Description
Passive Islanding Detection Continuously monitor electrical quantities or parameters
Techniques derived from electrical quantities to identify islanding
condition.

Active Islanding Detection Inject signal into the system through inverter controllers
Techniques and observe the electrical parameters behavior at
islanding instant
Hybrid Islanding Detection A combination of passive and active techniques
Techniques
Central Monitoring Uses extensive communication technologies like SCADA,
Technique (Communication PLCC to monitor circuit breaker status
Based Islanding Detection)

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Classification of Islanding Detection Techniques(IDTs)

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Passive Islanding Detection Techniques

• Comparison of electrical quantities or parameters derived from electrical

quantities measured at the DER terminals with respect to a predefined
threshold
• Electrical Quantities and Parameters:
Voltage, Frequency, Impedance, Phase angles, and harmonics.

Passive Islanding Detection Techniques are based on

• Power Quality
• Impedance
• Rate of Change of Frequency (ROCOF)
• Rate of Change of Phase Angle Difference (ROCPAD) and
• Signal Processing

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Power quality monitoring based technique

•Applicable for inverter based DERs like solar PV and wind system
•Inverters work on PWM principles and generate higher order harmonics
•Magnitude of the harmonic voltage increases during islanding condition

Voltage ripple based islanding detection technique

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Impedance monitoring based technique

• Impedance of the network changes during islanding condition.

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Rate of Change of Frequency (ROCOF) based Technique

• The power imbalance causes transients in the islanded system and the system
frequency starts to vary dynamically.
• However, if the power imbalance in the islanded system is small, then the
frequency will change slowly. Thus, the rate of change of frequency (df/dt) can
be used to accelerate the islanding detection for this situation.
• The rate of change of frequency is calculated considering a measure window
over a few cycles.
• This signal is processed by filters and then the resulting signal is used to detect
islanding.
• If the value of the rate of change of frequency is higher than a threshold value,
a trip signal is generated to indicate islanding situation.
• Typical ROCOF settings installed in 50Hz systems are between 0.1Hz/s and
1.0Hz/s. In the case of 60Hz systems, the range usually varies from 0.12 Hz/s to
1.2Hz/s.

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 ROCOF model

• The system frequency f is determined from the generator speed.

• Signal is processed by a derivative block and a first-order transfer function with
a time constant Ta, which represents the time constant of the filters and the
adopted measure window. In this study, Ta was set equal to six cycles.
• If the resulting signal is higher than the relay setting, then the relay
immediately sends a trip signal.

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• Figure presents the ROCOF detection-time versus power-imbalance curves for
different relay settings.
• The results show that the detection time increases as the power imbalance
decreases.
• Such increase is almost exponential when the power mismatch approaches
zero, since the frequency variation becomes more difficult to detect.
• In addition, for the same value of power imbalance the detection time
increases as the relay setting increases.
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Rate of Change of Phase Angle Difference (ROCPAD) based Technique

During islanding if the active power imbalance (power mismatch) is high, then
frequency drift will have higher amplitude and ROCOF works satisfactorily
based on a set threshold. However, when the active power imbalance is below
15%, then ROCOF fails and thus unable to provide effective protection measure
to DG interfaced to microgrid, during islanding.

From the phase angle information of the voltage and current signals, the
ROCPAD is computed for effective islanding detection in distributed generation.

ROCPAD can be represented as

 (  v  i )
ROCPAD 
t

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Flowchart for ROCPAD based islanding detection technique

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Flowchart for ROCPAD based islanding detection technique

ROCPAD at DG-2 for islanding conditions with

Standard IEEE-34 bus microgrid active power imbalance of 10 and 40%
Source:
Assessment of ROCPAD relay for islanding detection in distributed generation, IEEE Trans. on Smart
Grid, 2011.
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Signal Processing Based Islanding Detection Technique

• This is a fast and reliable method to identify islanding conditions.

• In this method, the ROCOF signal at the PCC is monitored. Upon occurrence of
a deviation in ROCOF, the difference in two consecutive cycles of the ROCOF
signal is calculated and mathematical procedure is performed to obtain
necessary features in the transient state signal.

• A specific procedure is developed to extract the features from signals which

are required for classification of the islanding and non-islanding conditions.

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Flowchart for Signal Processing Based Islanding Detection Technique

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• In order to select important features and remove irrelevant features, thirteen
statistical features extracted from different transient states in two consecutive
cycles of the ROCOF signal are considered.
• These features are
1) minimum, 2) maximum, 3) mean, 4) Standard Deviation (SD), 5) skewness, 6)
kurtosis, 7) Root Mean Square (RMS), 9) form factor, 10) crest-factor, 11)
shannon-entropy, 12) log-energy entropy, and 13) energy.

• Among these extracted features, a combination of features that have the best
performance and cause an increase in accuracy of the algorithm may be
selected and used for the islanding detection.

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Sample test system

Source:
Islanding detection method for microgrid based on extracted features from differential transient rate
of change of frequency, IET Gen. Trans. Distr., 2016.

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Sample test results

Variation of features at islanding condition

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Variation of features at motor starting condition
Sample test results

Variation of features at different fault condition

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Active islanding Detection Techniques

• Signal injection base technique

• Positive feedback based technique

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Signal injection based technique

Grid Connected microgrid model Controller block diagram showing

disturbance injection

Low frequency signal is injected with d-axis current component of inverter.

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  Id  i d  i*d 
I    
  
q  i q 

i*d  k *i d * cos(d t) where k=0.01

d is the disturbance signal frequency

Using d-q to abc transformation the equations for phase –a current is obtained as

ia  id cos(0 t)  0.5id cos(1 t)  cos(2 t) 

1  0  d 2  0  d

0 is the fundamental frequency

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• Before Islanding since grid impedance is lower than load impedance, harmonics
flow into grid and hence Voltage at PCC is governed by grid.

• After Islanding harmonics flow through load causing harmonic voltages at PCC.

• Monitoring the harmonic voltages, islanding condition can be identified.

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Source:
Hybrid analyzing technique for active islanding detection based on d-axis current injection, IEEE
Systems Journal, 2017.

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Hybrid islanding detection technique

Advantage of hybrid detection technique

 Passive islanding detection techniques
• At Zero Power Mismatch it is difficult to detect islanding condition since
electrical quantities variation is very less.
 Active Islanding detection Techniques
• Either they drive the islanded system into unstable mode or degrade power
quality.
 Hybrid Islanded Detection
• System is monitored using passive IDT, when an island is predicted it is further
checked by active IDT.
• Significant reduction in power quality issues and also detection capability is
better than passive IDTs.

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Voltage unbalance and frequency set point based islanding detection technique

• Voltage unbalance is used to initiate frequency set point method.

• After analyzing using frequency set point islanding is confirmed.

V2
Voltage Unbalance (VU) = V
1

Where, V2 is the negative sequence voltage; and

V1 is the positive sequence voltage

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Voltage unbalance and frequency set point based islanding detection technique

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Communication based islanding detection techniques

• SCADA based islanding detection

• PMU based islanding technique

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SCADA based islanding detection

• Monitors the auxiliary contacts -all utility circuit breakers those are liable to
check the conditions of islanded operation.
• Upon islanding, a series of alarm is activated and the corresponding circuit
breaker is tripped.
• This method is highly effective in detecting islanding, but it is too expensive and
requires many sensors.

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PMU based islanding detection

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 Thank you

Courtesy:
NPTEL online course on Introduction to Smart Grid, 2018.

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