Wide Area Protection Scheme for Power Distribution Systems with Renewable Energy Sources

The fault characteristics of new power distribution systems are changing significantly due to the development of renewable energy generation. Conventional protection and control methods are difficult to adapt to the problems caused by high penetration of renewables. A wide area protection scheme based on coordination of control and protection is proposed in this paper. The influence of renewable energy sources on distribution system protection is firstly studied. Then partitioning method for active distribution system is introduced to ensure that load can survive and be securely supported by distributed generators in local feeders after system splitting. Next, advanced feeder terminal units and intelligent electronic devices based wide area protection scheme is designed for achieving fast, selective, and reliable operation protection and fault isolation taking account into intentional islanding operation. The activity analysis of the control-protection coordination is conducted as well. Finally, the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed scheme are analyzed through case studies.