IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO.

4, OCTOBER 2010 2789

Microgrid Protection Using Communication-Assisted

Digital Relays
Eric Sortomme, Student Member, IEEE, S. S. Venkata, Life Fellow, IEEE, and Joydeep Mitra, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—Microgrids have been proposed as a way of inte- It is clear that protection of microgrids cannot be achieved
grating large numbers of distributed renewable energy sources with the same philosophies that have been used to protect tradi-
with distribution systems. One problem with microgrid imple- tional distribution systems. At the very least, a system designed
mentation is designing a proper protection scheme. It has been
shown that traditional protection schemes will not work suc- to protect a microgrid should take the following into account:
cessfully. In this paper a protection scheme using digital relays (a) bidirectional flow in feeders; (b) looped feeders; (c) reduced
with a communication network is proposed for the protection fault levels in islanded operation. In this work, therefore, every
of the microgrid system. The increased reliability of adding an one of these three factors are described in greater detail in the
additional line to form a loop structure is explored. Also a novel next section; the essence of this work is summarized by stating
method for modeling high impedance faults is demonstrated to
show how the protection scheme can protect against them. This that these factors are addressed through the following contribu-
protection scheme is simulated on a realistic distribution system tions: (1) A protection scheme using digital relays with a com-
containing a high penetration of inverter connected Distributed munication overlay is proposed for the protection of the mi-
Generation (DG) sources operating as a microgrid. In all possible crogrid system. A practical system, described in Section III, is
cases of operation the primary and secondary relays performed chosen from [3], [4] to investigate the protection scheme. (2)
their intended functions including the detection of high impedance
faults. This system is simulated using Matlab Simulink’s SimPow- The increased reliability of adding an additional line to form a
erSystems toolbox to establish the claims made in this paper. loop structure is explored. (3) A novel method for modeling high
impedance faults is demonstrated to show how the protection
Index Terms—Digital relay, distribution communication, distri- scheme can protect against them. This is important in microgrid
bution systems, high impedance fault, microgrid, protection.
protection not only because a the percentage of high impedance
faults on the distribution system is not insignificant [5], but also
because microgrids, in the islanded mode, typically have lower
I. INTRODUCTION fault currents, and methods of high impedance fault detection
will be useful for the detection of these faults.

NE proposed way of integrating high penetration of DG II. PROTECTION SCHEME

O sources is through microgrids. A microgrid is defined as
a low to medium voltage network of small load clusters with A. The Case for a New Protection Paradigm
DG sources and storage [1]. Microgrids can operate in islanded Most distribution systems are operated in radial mode. The
mode or grid-connected mode. If a microgrid is connected to the majority of these are radially connected; others may have loop
system, it is seen as a single aggregate load or source. One of closing feeders, but the loops are kept open by normally open
the potential advantages of a microgrid is that it could provide switches that are closed only when other parts of the loops are
more reliable supply to customers by islanding from the system opened because of faults. Hence, the radial structure is pre-
in the event of a major disturbance. The microgrid protection served. Consequently, in these systems, the protection is de-
in islanded operation poses a serious problem. It was shown in signed for radial operation. However, as the penetration of dis-
[2], [3] that the fault currents for a grid-connected and islanded tributed resources increases, these systems will experience two
microgrid are significantly different. Additionally, high penetra- important changes: (a) bidirectional flow in the feeders, and (b)
tion of inverter connected DG sources lead to conditions where looped operation. Traditional protection schemes for radial op-
no standard overcurrent protection methods will suffice. eration will no longer be adequate. Nor can one apply traditional
protection schemes that are in use even in meshed distribution
systems today, because the new protection systems will have
Manuscript received May 18, 2009; revised September 19, 2009. First pub- to be adaptive, since as the system switches between grid-con-
lished December 11, 2009; current version published September 22, 2010. Paper
no. TPWRD-00376-2009.
nected and islanded (as single or multiple islands) modes, the (i)
E. Sortomme and S. S. Venkata are with the Department of Electrical Engi- configuration and (ii) fault levels will change. A logical solution
neering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 USA (e-mail: eric.sor- that accommodates all these changes is a communication-as-
[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]).
J. Mitra is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
sisted system.
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824 USA (e-mail: mitraj@msu.
edu). B. General Microgrid Protection Philosophy
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Since a microgrid can operate in a grid-connected mode and
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2009.2035810 in an islanded mode, it is necessary to protect it in both modes of
0885-8977/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE
2790 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2010

operation. The general philosophy is to find a method that will reports [10]. By using these relays on the end of each line seg-
work equally well in both modes of operation. There are dif- ment, a very robust protection scheme can be developed. Al-
ferent philosophies of protecting islanded microgrids. One is to though the work reported in this paper used digital relays, it
simply trip the entire microgrid offline once the fault is detected is conceivable that the use of properly designed sensors and
during islanding since it is an failure; the first failure switches will perform adequately for faults encountered in dis-
being the loss of the feeder. For additional reliability, the faulted tribution systems, and enable cost-effective protection schemes.
line will need to be removed from service and the remaining The costs can be further controlled by not using specific com-
connected loads and sources will operate as two smaller islands. munication channels, but by ‘piggy-backing’ on any available
This will only work if the generation and load in each smaller channels already deployed in that part of the system. For in-
system match. If higher reliability is required, the feeders can be stance, if ‘smart grid’ technologies have already been deployed,
connected as a loop, so the loss of a feeder or a lateral will not the corresponding communication channel can be used. The pri-
result in service disruption to customers. The higher reliability, mary protection scheme utilizes a relay that measures absolute
however, comes at a higher cost. current sampled at 16 or higher number of samples per cycle
Several methods of protecting microgrids have been previ- and then transmitted via communication link to the relay on the
ously proposed. One scheme is to have each DG source have its other side of the line. For distances under 18 miles, the trans-
own relay and operate without communications [6]. This works mission takes less than 0.1 ms based on the speed of light for
well for single line-to-ground faults and line-to-line faults. It signal transmission and several additional microseconds for pro-
relies on the sum of the phase and neutral currents as well as cessing time. This is sufficient for most distribution systems.
zero sequence currents. However, it fails to detect some high This means that there is no need to get time-synchronized mea-
impedance faults. Another proposed scheme is to use a voltage surements from both sides of the line for short distribution lines.
protection scheme [7]. In this case, the phase voltages at the For lines longer than 18 miles, however, a Phasor Measurement
DG source are transformed into the ‘dq0’ synchronous frame, Unit (PMU) may be required. In this way a differential relaying
and then compared against a reference. A voltage drop against scheme is successfully created.
the reference initiates switching device tripping. For multiple The primary protection for each feeder relies on instanta-
DG sources, the voltages are compared via an undefined com- neous differential protection. If absolute values of two samples
munication link and the lowest relative voltage part is tripped. are found to be above the trip threshold, the tripping signal is
This method is also ineffective against high impedance faults. sent to the switching device. It is anticipated that these switching
An additional protection scheme utilizes standard overcurrent devices will benefit from recent advances in switching technolo-
differential protection on each line with backup voltage and fre- gies (such as vacuum interrupters) and higher sampling rates,
quency protection at each DG source [8]. This scheme is also un- and it should soon be possible to interrupt currents much faster
able to detect high impedance faults (HIF’s). In addition, each of than the present-day norm of 3–5 cycles. The expected fault cur-
the aforementioned schemes has only been tested on relatively rents can vary over a wide range: less than to many times greater
small systems with few buses and undefined distances between than the nominal load current (0.5–20 p.u.). The current trans-
distribution lines. formers will therefore need to have accurate operation over this
Additionally, it has been proposed that replacing overcurrent wide range of fault currents.
relays with directional relays in instances where a problem of In the event of a switching device failure, a backup trip signal
directionality exists is possible; but this comes at a high cost. will be sent to the adjacent relays on the same bus. This signal
Individual DG’s could also be tripped at the first detection of a is sent after a certain time delay, greater than 0.3 seconds but
fault before the distribution relays can operate [9]. The problem less than 0.6 seconds, if the measured differential current is still
with directional relays is that they will also not detect HIF’s. above the threshold. This is the normally accepted practice, but
Tripping DG sources also reduces the reliability of service to with the advent of high performance relays and breakers the
the customer. delay could be significantly shorter. If the relay or the communi-
It has also been proposed that microgrids could participate in cation link fails, this will alert all other connected relays that the
remedial action schemes using synchronized phasor measure- differential scheme is lost. An alarm will be sent to the distribu-
ments to determine the appropriate islanding and restoration tion control center. The remaining relays will rely on compar-
strategies. These protection schemes however are under devel- ative voltage protection until the system is restored. The com-
opment and currently not ready for deployment [9]. parative voltage protection compares the relative rms voltage at
each relay with every other connected relay. For voltages less
C. Proposed Protection Scheme than 0.7 p.u., the relay with the lowest voltage will trip after a
The protection scheme proposed in this work utilizes some 0.6 second but less than 0.9 second time delay. This allows the
of the principles of synchronized phasor measurements and mi- first two schemes to operate. Each DG source is also equipped
croprocessor relays to detect all types of fault conditions in- with undervoltage tripping for voltages less than 0.7 p.u. and
cluding HIF’s. It is based on the deployment of digital distri- after one second delay. This protection scheme is depicted in
bution feeder relays that are currently offered by some of the Fig. 1.
major manufacturers. These digital relays include standard over- The protection scheme can detect HIF’s in two ways. The first
current and over/under voltage protection methods. They are way relies on the high sensitivity of the current transformers. As
programmable and have fiber optic and Ethernet communica- long as the HIF current magnitude is at least 10% of the nominal
tion links. They are self metering and have oscillographic event current, the HIF will be detected by the differential protection
SORTOMME et al.: MICROGRID PROTECTION USING COMMUNICATION-ASSISTED DIGITAL RELAYS 2791

Fig. 2. Current waveform of randomly varying HIF resistance.

Fig. 1. Conceptual representation of proposed protection scheme.

scheme. The other method relies on programming the relays to

recognize certain HIF characteristics that have been observed
and then tripping when those characteristics are present in the
differential current.

III. A NEW MODEL FOR HIGH IMPEDANCE FAULTS

High impedance faults (HIF’s) have traditionally been dif-
ficult to model and detect. They exhibit buildup, shoulder,
non-linearity, and asymmetry. Additionally, they are stochastic
or nonlinearly deterministic in nature [11]–[13]. The bulk
of the work on HIF’s has been on modeling the waveform
and the harmonics for detection purposes [5], [13]–[16]. The
problem with these methods of HIF modeling is that they
neglect the stochastic elements inherent in the fault conditions
Fig. 3. Fifth through seventh cycles of the HIF current in Fig. 2.
such as ‘dancing’ wires on asphalt or trees blowing in the
wind. Because of these conditions, the HIF’s will also have
completely random elements that can drastically change the
described in the literature [5], [11]–[16]. However, further field
current envelope, as well as add small variations to it.
or high-voltage laboratory testing will be required to validate
Therefore, in this paper a novel way of modeling HIF’s is pro-
this model for specific HIF types. These tests will be conducted
posed to provide further insight into the HIF fault behavior. This
using different materials with high impedance. Specific condi-
model relies on randomly varying the magnitude of the fault re-
tions (tree falling on wire, cut wire from automobile collision)
sistance and its duration. The resistance is varied randomly be-
will also need to be simulated to tune the model parameters to
tween 50 and 1000 . The duration of each resistance value is
these specific types of HIF’s. The model can then be used to
randomly varied between 10 s and 5 ms. This way the true ran-
simulate the desired HIF.
domness of HIF’s can be captured. A deterministic time-decay
component is added in series with the fault resistance to model
the buildup and shoulder behavior. Two additional deterministic IV. MICROGRID APPLICATION SYSTEM
resistances assure negative cycle asymmetry and zero crossing A practical test system as shown in Fig. 4 is used in this study.
clipping. It is an 18-bus distribution system shown in [4] that has been
To test the HIF model proposed here, a simple test system converted to a microgrid by adding multiple DG sources [3].
with a 564 kVA source feeding two 282 kVA loads connected The source models are taken from standard Matlab Simulink
radially with two distribution lines is constructed. The fault is blocks and examples. A more detailed description of the models
initiated midway on the furthest line from the source. A simu- is given in [3]. The system carries 3.03 MVA of unbalanced load
lated fault current waveform is shown in Fig. 2. The expanded and is connected to a 10 MVA transformer. Bus loads are shown
fifth through seventh cycles of this waveform can be seen in in Table I. There are four inverter-connected solar arrays; two
Fig. 3. From these figures it can be seen that the model cap- wind turbines, and one diesel generator connected at different
tures both the deterministic and stochastic elements of HIF’s buses. The solar arrays are connected to three-phase inverters
2792 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2010

Fig. 4. One line diagram of the microgrid with added DG sources.

TABLE I and 13. This new system is shown in Fig. 5. A microgrid with a
BUS LOADS FOR THE MICROGRID IN Fig. 1, BLANK AREAS INDICATE loop structure is protected against contingencies or fail-
UNCONNECTED PHASES
ures. Additionally a loop structure will also help the reliability
of the system in steady state operation, though it is not the focus
of this paper.

V. SIMULATION AND RESULTS

The test system is simulated in Matlab Simulink’s SimPow-
erSystems. The system is simulated using Simulink’s ode3
with a fixed time step of 1 microsecond. A comprehensive fault
analysis is performed for all locations on the system and all
four fault types. Single line-to-ground high impedance faults
are also simulated. Additionally, the cases of switching device
and relay failure are simulated to test the efficacy of backup
protection system. The particular case of a line-to-ground
(L-G) fault midway between busses 3 and 5 is described in
detail for all of the four cases discussed below. Voltage and
and provide a total of 2,256 kW. The wind turbines are induc- current measurements are taken on bus 10 to demonstrate the
tion generators and provide 500 kW. When islanded, additional effectiveness of the proposed scheme. The system is simulated
generation is provided by the 300 kW diesel generator. This at- on four different scenarios; grid connected and islanded with
tempts to model a realistic distribution system that, through the the system configured radially, as in Fig. 4, and grid connected
addition of customer owned DG, is converted to a microgrid. and islanded configured in a loop structure, as in Fig. 5.
With the microgrid radially connected as in Fig. 4, the relia-
bility is easily compromised with any fault. A fault on the line A. Radial and Islanded Case
between busses 5 and 6, for example, will remove a large solar In this case, the primary protection scheme has no difficulty
array from service. This will result in an approximately 350 kW isolating all fault types. The relays are able to detect all solid
generation deficiency for the microgrid if it is islanded. Sim- faults after two samples and trip within the cycle. The current
ilar generation deficiencies will be observed for a removal of and voltages as measured at bus 10 for normal relay operation
any line while operating in an islanded mode. To mitigate this for an L-G fault on the ‘A’ (solid line) phase are shown in Fig. 6.
problem an additional line is added to form a loop structure. This on line 2–10. The differential fault current as measured at the
line should be added where it connects as many DG sources as bus 3 relay on line 3–5 is shown in Fig. 7. It can be seen from
possible to the central ring of the loop for maximum reliability. Fig. 6 that after the fault is cleared, there is voltage droop due
For the test system used in this study, this is between buses 6 to under generation on the remaining islanded network. This
SORTOMME et al.: MICROGRID PROTECTION USING COMMUNICATION-ASSISTED DIGITAL RELAYS 2793

Fig. 5. One line diagram of the microgrid with an additional line between buses 6 and 13 making a loop structure.

Fig. 7. Differential current measured at the relay at bus 3 on line 3–5. Microgrid
state is islanded with radial structure.

Fig. 6. Voltages and currents for line 2–10 for an L-G fault on line 3–5 with
primary relay operation. Microgrid state is islanded with radial structure. for an additional 0.3 s before being cleared. Also, since the sec-
ondary or backup operation trips additional loads and generation
offline, the only current flowing on line 2–10 is to feed the ‘C’
type of waveform is typical for the radial connected system. In phase load at bus 9. Similar voltage waveforms are observed at
all fault locations, there is a resulting over generation on one all other locations for this case with different current flows de-
sub-island and an under generation on the other. This scenario pending on the location.
demonstrates the need for a loop structure which can maintain The case of a relay failure, tertiary protection, is shown in
the generation balance under loss of line conditions. Fig. 10. The fault current in this case persists for 0.6 s before it
The case of a primary switching device failure at the same is cleared. The resulting voltages and currents are otherwise the
location as above is shown in Figs. 8 and 9. The fault persists same as in the case of the switching device failure.
2794 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2010

Fig. 8. Voltages and currents for line 2–10 for an L-G fault on line 3–5 with the Fig. 10. Voltage and currents for line 2–10 for an L-G fault on line 3–5 with
primary switching device failure and successful backup trip. Microgrid state is primary relay failure and backup voltage operation. Microgrid state is islanded
islanded with radial structure. with radial structure.

Fig. 9. Differential current at the relay at bus 3 on line 3–5 with a switching
device failure and a successful backup trip. Microgrid state is islanded with
radial structure.
Fig. 11. Voltages and currents for line 2–10 for an L-G fault on line 3–5 with
primary relay operation. Microgrid state is grid connected with radial structure.

B. Radial and Grid Connected Case

The main difference in the grid connected mode of opera- loads remain in service and the generation load balance is main-
tion to the islanded mode is that the portion of the microgrid tained as long as the primary protection operates. The transients
still connected to the main grid has a perfect generation load are greater largely due the reversal of power flow along many
match since the additional power can either be sent to the system of the lines the instant the switching devices open. Voltages and
or received from it. However, that portion separated from the currents for the L-G fault with normal operation are shown in
grid in this case always has too much or too little generation Fig. 12. After the switching device opens, there is no accompa-
which can cause a loss of the load. The transients experienced nying voltage droop on the lines verifying the additional relia-
by the system are also larger since the system has a much larger bility added to the system by the loop.
short-circuit capacity than the DG sources. Voltage and current
waveforms for the L-G fault are shown in Fig. 11. Notice there D. Loop Structure and Grid Connected Case
is no voltage droop associated with clearing the fault.
This is largely the same as the loop structure when islanded.
C. Loop Structure and Islanded Case The transients are larger due to the higher short circuit capacity
of the system. The voltages and currents for the L-G fault on
The loop structure allows additional reliability, especially to with successful primary relay operation are shown in Fig. 13.
loads in the main loop. For faults on any of the loop lines, all Notice the unusually high ‘A’ phase current (solid line) due to
SORTOMME et al.: MICROGRID PROTECTION USING COMMUNICATION-ASSISTED DIGITAL RELAYS 2795

Fig. 12. Voltages and currents for line 2–10 for an L-G fault on line 3–5 with Fig. 14. Voltages and currents for line 2–10 for a HIF on line 3–5 with normal
normal relay operation. Microgrid state is islanded with loop structure. relay operation. Microgrid state is islanded with radial structure.

Fig. 13. Voltages and currents for line 2–10 for an L-G fault on line 3–5 with Fig. 15. Differential current the relay at bus 3 on line 3–5 for a HIF with normal
normal relay operation. Microgrid state is grid connected with loop structure. operation. The current threshold was 6 A.

the reduced line impedance to the fault as a result of the con- the radial configuration usually has generation-load imbalance
necting loop. with the removal of any line due to a fault. However, it is clear
that placing these relays and switching devices on each line tap
E. High Impedance Faults (HIF’s) in a distribution system would, in most cases, not be economi-
For HIF’s, the relays are able to detect the current difference cally justifiable. Another method that uses the same principles is
as long as the total fault current is greater than 10% of the nom- to have only sensor units at the buses with a communication link
inal primary current. This nominal current in some cases is only to the substation. At the substation, a central controller or logic
20 A. These differences are able to be detected since the cur- processor such as the one described in [18] can monitor the cur-
rent transformers are operating near their nominal level and thus rent and voltage differences and remotely operate the switching
are in the linear region where error is small. Voltage and cur- devices. Additionally, any lines that will not experience bidi-
rent waveforms for a high impedance line to ground fault on ‘A’ rectional current flow will only need one switching device in-
phase are shown in Fig. 14 and differential current at the relay stead of two, thus further reducing the cost. This scheme will
is shown in Fig. 15. work exactly the same as with multiple relays and for similar
faults, similar responses as those previously discussed will be
observed. In the event of a communication failure, however, the
VI. DISCUSSION
only protection will be on the sources which will work for all
The proposed protection scheme is clearly able to protect a but HIF’s. Though even this scheme is still more expensive than
microgrid in all modes of operation with an improvement in re- traditional protection methods, it is justified if the customers re-
liability. This is especially true with the loop configuration as quire the additional reliability of islanding.
2796 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2010

VII. CONCLUSION [10] Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc.,, SEL-751A Feeder Pro-
tection Relay Jun. 2008 [Online]. Available: http://www.selinc.com/
In this paper, a digital relay scheme with a communication WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=3812, [Accessed: Sep. 3, 2009]
[11] F. Chen, K. B. Athreya, V. V. Sastry, and S. S. Venkata, “Function
overlay is proposed to protect microgrids with customer owned space valued Markov model for electric arc furnace,” IEEE Trans.
DG sources. The proposed protection system relies primarily Power Syst., vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 826–833, May 2004.
on differential protection based on sampling the current wave- [12] E. O’Neill-Carrillo, G. T. Heydt, E. J. Kostelich, S. S. Venkata, and
form at 16 samples per cycle or more. A new and novel model A. Sundaram, “Nonlinear deterministic modeling of highly varying
loads,” IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 537–542, Apr. 1999.
for HIF’s using random duration and time varying resistances [13] S. Ekles, Detecting High-Impedance Faults, El-Paso Electric
is also presented. This model is shown to accurately capture the Co., 2009 [Online]. Available: http://www.elp.com/index/dis-
behavior of HIF’s which has been observed in previous litera- play/article-display/341599/s-articles/s-utility-automation-en-
gineering-td/s-volume-13/s-issue-10/s-features/s-detecting-high-
ture. A loop structure is also shown to increase reliability against impedance-faults.html, [Accessed: Sep. 11, 2009]
contingencies while a radial configuration is shown to [14] T. M. Lai, L. A. Snider, and W. C. Lo, “Wavelet transform based relay
algorithm for the detection of stochastic high impedance faults,” Electr.
easily collapse when islanded. The loop structure is shown to be Power Syst. Res., vol. 76, no. 8, pp. 626–633, 2006.
most effective when it connects that maximum possible number [15] S. R. Nam, J. K. Park, Y. C. Kang, and T. H. Kim, “A modeling
of DG sources to the central loop. The simulation of the protec- method of a high impedance fault in a distribution system using two
series timevarying resistances in EMTP,” in Proc. IEEE Power Eng.
tion scheme shows that it is able to quickly detect and clear all
Soc. Summer Meeting, Vancouver, BC, Canada, Jul. 2001, vol. 2, pp.
faults including HIF’s with current of at least 10% of the nom- 1175–1180.
inal current, at all locations. Based on the research work and [16] N. I. Elkalashy, M. Lehtonen, H. A. Darwish, M. A. Izzularab, and A.
results presented in this paper, the improved reliability can be I. Taalab, “Modeling and experimental verification of high impedance
arcing fault in medium voltage networks,” IEEE Trans. Dielectr. Electr.
obtained with a central controller with communication to mul- Insulat., vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 375–383, Apr. 2007.
tiple measurement units for a reduced cost without installing ex- [17] R. H. Lasseter, “Certs microgrid,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Syst. Syst.
plicit relays at each end of every line. An optimum strategy for Eng., 2007, pp. 1–5.
[18] Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc.,, SEL-3378 Syn-
the number of relays and their location can be evaluated based chrophasor Vector Processor Jun. 2008 [Online]. Available:
on the network topology at the location and ratings of the DG http://www.selinc.com/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=2830,
[Accessed: Sep. 4, 2009]
sources.
Eric Sortomme (S’08) was born in Ephrata, WA,
on September 22, 1981. He received the B.S. degree
REFERENCES (magna cum laude) in electrical engineering from
Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, in 2007. He is
[1] European SmartGrid Technology Platform, Vision and Strategy for currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree at the University
Europe’s Electricity Networks of the Future, EU Commission, Di- of Washington, Seattle, with research emphasis on
rectorate-General for Research, Information and Communication SmartGrid technologies and wind power integration.
Unit. Brussels, Belgium, 2006. His employment experience includes internships
[2] T. C. Green and J. D. McDonald, “Modeling and analysis of fault be- with Wavetronix LLC and Puget Sound Energy.
havior of inverter microgrids to aid future fault detection,” in Proc. He has authored or co-authored three additional
IEEE Int. Conf. Syst. Eng., 2007, pp. 1–6. technical publications.
[3] E. Sortomme, G. J. Mapes, B. A. Foster, and S. S. Venkata, “Fault
analysis and protection of a microgrid,” in Proc. North Amer. Power
Symp., 2008, Sep. 2008, pp. 1–6.
[4] Cooper Power Systems, Ed. 3, Electrical Distribution-System Protec-
tion, Cooper Industries, 1990. S. S. (Mani) Venkata (M’68–SM’77–F’89–LF’08) is an affiliate Professor of
[5] C. G. Wester, High Impedance Fault Detection on Distribution Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle.
Systems, General Electric Company, 2008 [Online]. Available: He is also the president of Venkata Consulting Solutions, Inc.
http://pm.geindustrial.com/faq/documents/f60/ger-3993.pdf, [Ac-
cessed: Sep. 11, 2009]
[6] H. Nikkhajoei and R. H. Lasseter, “Microgrid protection,” in Proc.
IEEE Power Eng. Soc. General Meeting, Jun. 2007, pp. 1–6. Joydeep Mitra (S’94–M’97–SM’02) received the B.Tech. (hons.) degrees in
[7] M. A. Redfern and H. Al-Nasseri, “Protection of micro-grids domi- electrical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India,
nated by distributed generation using solid state converters,” in Proc. and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University,
IET 9th Int. Conf. Develop. Power Syst. Protection, 2008, pp. 670–674. College Station.
[8] H. H. Zeineldin, E. F. El-Saadany, and M. M. A. Salama, “Distributed He is Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Faculty Associate
generation micro-grid operation: Control and protection,” in Proceed- of the Institute of Public Utilities at Michigan State University, East Lansing.
ings of the Power Systems Conference: Advanced Metering, Protection, Prior to this, he was Associate Professor at New Mexico State University, Las
Control, Communication, and Distributed Resources, 2006, Mar. 2006, Cruces, Assistant Professor at North Dakota State University, Fargo, and Senior
pp. 105–111. Consulting Engineer at LCG Consulting, Los Altos, CA. His research interests
[9] Power System Relaying, S. H. Horowitz and A. G. Phadke, Eds., 3rd include power system reliability, distributed energy resources, and power system
ed. Hertfordshire, U.K.: Baldock, 2008, p. 259. planning.