Improving Coordination and Operating Speed of Overcurrent Relay against Contingency of Presence of Distributed Generators

Abstract

The presence or absence of distributed generation (DG) sources in a distribution network has a probabilistic nature. In the event of connection or disconnection of these sources, the fault current through a relay and the relay operating time are affected, which leads to miscoordination. For solving this issue, coordination constraints corresponding to the presence or absence of DGs have to be considered in the overcurrent relay coordination problem (CP). The incorporation of these constraints increases the operating time (OT) of the conventional overcurrent relays (OCRs). In this paper, a novel adaptive characteristic is proposed to solve this unwanted effect. Accordingly, a function proportional to the equivalent impedance (EI) seen by the relay is added to the relay characteristic. This EI is calculated via in-situ measurement of voltage and current before the occurrence of a fault, continuously; when the fault occurs, the calculated impedance is used in the relay characteristic to determine the OT. The addition of this function to the conventional overcurrent relay characteristic, reduces the effects of disconnecting the DGs on the coordination constraint, and in general, improves the OT of the relay. Based on the analytical relations and simulation results, it is shown that the OTs of the primary and backup relays with the proposed characteristic are improved compared to the relays with the conventional characteristic