Verification of Protective Device Coordination in Distribution Systems With Photovoltaic Generation
Verification of Protective Device Coordination in Distribution Systems With Photovoltaic Generation
Abstract — In this paper, an automated approach is presented paper, effects of PV on fuse-fuse coordination and fuse-
to verify the impact of different levels of photovoltaic (PV) recloser coordination are studied on an actual feeder in
penetration on the protective device coordination in distribution
systems. The approach is implemented on a detailed feeder Arizona. The radial feeder is nearly 10 miles long, with close
modeled in OpenDSS. The feeder has been modeled using to a thousand transformers serving roughly three thousand
extensive geographic information system (GIS) data, with loads, customers. There are over two thousand segments and 39
PV output and substation voltage modeled using data from types of overhead lines and underground cables on the
advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and data acquisition primary side. The protective devices installed in the feeder
systems (DAS), as discussed in [1-2]. Starting from the feeder
topology, an adjacency matrix is generated to find the include one substation relay, one main-line recloser and close
coordinated protective devices during each possible fault in the to 200 lateral fuses. The feeder has been modeled in OpenDSS
feeder. The time-current curves (TCC) are created based on the as shown in Figure 1 [1-2], using extensive GIS data, with
types and ratings of the protective devices installed in the feeder loads and substation voltage modeled using data from AMI
to help classify whether coordination holds or not, under and DAS. Because of the complexity of the feeder topology,
increasing penetration levels and varying locations of the PV
system. The fuse-fuse coordination and fuse-recloser automated ways of checking coordination of fuses and
coordination during all types of possible faults are verified in this reclosers under different fault conditions need to be
study. The approach implemented can also be utilized in other developed. Also, in order to compare the operation time of the
feeders to help verify the protective device coordination with and protective devices for given fault current values, TCC
without PV penetration. equations need to be defined based on the types and ratings of
Index Terms — Distribution system, protective device the protective devices. The overall procedure to verify the
coordination, PV penetration, fuse-fuse coordination, fuse-
recloser coordination. protective device coordination with PV is illustrated in the
following sections.
I. INTRODUCTION
Conventional distribution systems are usually designed as
radial systems with a single source feeding the downstream
system. The protective devices including reclosers and fuses
are therefore installed based on the radial structure.
With PV connected to the system, especially at high
penetration levels, it is possible that the coordination among
the protective devices may not hold due to the fault
contribution from PV generators. Issues related to
coordination problems have been discussed in the literature. In
[3-4], the possible loss of fuse-fuse coordination and fuse-
recloser coordination under the impact of distributed
generation (DG) is discussed. In order to mitigate the impact
of DG on protection coordination, [5] developed a
classification technique for recloser-fuse coordination to find
the best DG location with proper recloser settings, [6]
proposed a new control strategy to limit the DG output current
during faults, and [7] utilized the grounding reactance to
reduce the residual fault current from DG.
Since the impacts of distributed PV on the protective device
coordination are influenced by the sizes and the placements of
PV as well as the types and locations of faults, the
coordination needs to be verified with varying PV penetration Figure 1 Feeder diagram with fuses (green circles) and recloser (red
levels and different locations during all possible faults. In this circle) shown
Figure 2 Flow chart of creating the adjacency matrix, node list and
section list for all the feeder nodes and sections
(4)
A
t ( I ) = TD ⋅ P
+ B
I
Figure 6 Downstream fault in an equivalent distribution system with I −1
a PV system added pickup
where,
I in v Z fee d e r 2 (2)
I re c lo se r_ c h a n g e = − t: recloser operating time
Z su b sta tio n + Z fe e d e r1 + Z fe e d e r 2 I: fault current flowing through the recloser
I in v ( Z fee d er 1 + Z su b sta tio n ) (3) TD: time dial setting
I fu se_ c h a n g e =
Z s u b s ta tio n + Z fe e d e r1 + Z fe ed e r 2 Ipickup: relay trip current setting
A,B and P: recloser curve parameters
Before the fuse-recloser coordination studies, the recloser
Curve fitting for ground-recloser slow curve
TCC is defined in a similar way as the definition of the fuse 15
TCC. The fast and slow curve numbers and trip ratings of the