2011The International Conference on Advanced Power System Automation and Protection

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*2Corresponding author (email: mchxia@bjtu.edu.cn)
Impacts of Microgrid on Protection of Distribution Networks and Pro-
tection Strategy of Microgrid
Kai-Hui Zheng
1
, Ming-Chao Xia
2
1, 2
School of Electrical Engineering, Beijing Jiao Tong University, Beijing 100044, China
Abstract: In order to make more rational and effective use of distributed generation (DG), microgrid has been put forward.
However, the connection of microgrid has a fundamental impact on the protection of distribution network. A brief introduction
of the structure of microgrid was given, and the potential impact of DG on the protection and autoreclosing was analyzed.
Some protection methods were summarized, and the adaptive protection was adopted in this paper.
Keywords: Distributed generation (DG), microgrid, relay protection
1 Introduction
With the growing demand for electricity, the advantages of
large power grid in the past few decades made it rapidly
developed and became the main power supply line now.
However, there are some drawbacks such as high cost,
operation difficulty, reliability and security problems in the
centralized power grid. In particular, several series of
worldwide large-scale blackout have occurred in recent
years, the vulnerability of large power grids was fully
exposed. Therefore, DG (Distributed Generation), with the
advantages of less pollution, energy efficiency high, flexible
installation locations, and so on, has been put forward. .
Compared with the centralized power generation, DG can
save resources of transmission and distribution besides
operating costs, and reduce the line loss of centralized
transmission. DG can reduce the total capacity of power
grid, improve grid peak performance, and improve power
supply reliability, which is a strong complement to large
power grids.
With the distributed power generation technology
matures, there are some problems of its own. For example
the high cost of stand-alone DG connected to grid, control
difficult, and so on. With further research, scholars have
put forward the idea of microgrid in 2001, to make more
rational and effective use of DG. Compared with the
traditional centralized energy systems, microgrid is adjacent
to the load, and does not require long-distance high-voltage
or extra high voltage transmission. However, the connection
of microgrid has a fundamental impact on the protection of
distribution network.
In this paper, the structure of microgrid and the impact of
microgrid on distribution network protection were analyzed.
In addition, the application of adaptive protection of
microgrid was introduced combined with the current
research status.
2 The typical structure of microgrid
The microgrid is composed of load, micro-power and ener-
gy storage device. Micro-power achieves energy conversion
and control mainly through the power electronics technolo-
gy. Relative to the power system (main power), microgrid is
a control unit of the system, it can respond in a short time to
meet the needs of the external main power grid. While for
users, microgrid can meet the requirements of a particular
power quality of local load, improve power supply reliabili-
ty, and reduce line losses, etc. Figure 1 is the basic structure
of the microgrid, which the Consortium for Electric Relia-
bility Technology Solutions (CERTS) proposed. As shown
in Figure 1, DG is connected to the feeder via power elec-
tronic interfaces. To enhance reliability, a peer-to-peer and
plug-and-play model is used for each component of the mi-
crogrid [1]. Microgrid is connected to the public distribution
network through PCC (Point of Common Couple). And
there is a SS (static switch) in the bus section, through
which can switch smoothly between the grid-connected
mode and the islanded mode [2].

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2011The International Conference on Advanced Power System Automation and Protection
Figure.1 The basic structure of microgrid.
There are grid-connected mode and the islanded mode in
microgrid. In most cases, microgrid runs in the
grid-connected mode, and the load of microgrid can be sup-
plied from microgrid or main power grid. When fault oc-
curred in the main power grid, microgrid will quickly dis-
connect the main power grid and smoothly switch to is-
landed mode, to ensure that critical loads are not affected.
3 Impacts of microgrid on protection of distri-
bution networks
The connection of microgrid has a fundamental impact
on the protection of distribution network. For example, the
uni-directional flow of the traditional distribution network
will become bi-directional flow, and the traditional segment
protection compliance with timing will no longer be valid.
After connected to distribution network, microgrid will have
an impact on the speed, selectivity, sensitivity, reliability
and autoreclosing of line protection.
1) After connected to distribution network, DG in the mi-
crogrid reduces the sensitivity of line protection. As shown
in Figure 2, in the case of the same DG capacity, when the
fault occurs at K1, the fault current that flows through R1 is
smaller than it when DG is not connected to distribution
network, because the residual voltage of access points in-
creases due to the connection of DG.
Grid
R1
K1
DG
Figure 2 Impact of DG downstream fault on the protection.
Therefore, it reduced the fault current value, which the
line protection detects, and it reduced the sensitivity of the
protection of R1, which may cause protection of R1 refuse
to trip.
2) DG in the microgrid may cause line protection mal-
function when fault occurred in adjacent lines. As shown in
Figure 3, in the case of the same DG capacity, when the
fault occurs at adjacent line K2, DG will provide
short-circuit fault current, and R2 will have the opposite
fault current. When the reverse fault current is large
enoughif directional element is not installed at R2, it may
cause malfunction of the protection, to make the line which
DG is connected tripped without fault and loss selectivity of
protection.
Figure 3 Line protection where DG is connected malfunction
3) DG in the microgrid has an impact on the scope of
protection. Suppose DG capacity were mot changing. For
the same fault, compared with non-connected DG, DG fault
current flowing through the downstream protection increas-
es, while the fault current flowing through upstream protec-
tion decreases, which makes downstream protection in-
crease the scope of protection, and the scope of protection
of the upstream protection reduce.
4) DG in the microgrid has a major impact on the auto-
reclosing. When DG is connected, we must first ensure that
DG has been tripped from the distribution network before
reclosing. Otherwise, when reclosing overlap, the arc could
re-ignite due to the fault point lacks of free time, making
unsuccessful reclosing [3]-[5].
4 The strategy of microgrid protection
A. Research on microgrid protection
It is essential to protect a microgrid in both the
grid-connected and the islanded modes of operation against
all types of faults. The major issue arises in island operation
with inverter-based sources. Inverter fault currents are li-
mited by the ratings of the silicon devices to around 2 times
of rated current. Fault currents of inverter based microgrid
in islanded mode may not have adequate magnitudes to trip

2011The International Conference on Advanced Power System Automation and Protection

traditional over-current protection. Therefore, the traditional
distribution network protection is no longer applicable to
microgrid, and we must seek new protection strategy.
Current protection schemes proposed can be divided into
two aspects. On the one hand, it is to improve the traditional
distribution network protection schemes in order to reduce
fault clearing time, increase sensitivity and improve the
feeder power quality. On the other hand, Protection of
transmission lines, which are mature theories, are used in
power distribution systems, such as distance protection,
pilot protection.
As in [1], the concept of microgrid system-level protec-
tion and unit-level protection are put forward. System-level
protection is installed at PCC, and unit-level protection is
installed inside the microgrid with a small current groun-
ding fault detection technology. As in [6], in order to pre-
vent the possible consequences of island operation, relay
protection system must fast and reliably detect the islanding,
and promptly remove the DG which is islanded. Islanding
detection is usually divided into the active islanding detec-
tion and passive detection. Passive islanding detection me-
thods have ROCOF (rate of change of frequency), VVS
(voltage vector shift), etc. And active islanding detection
methods have REED (reactive error export detector) [7],
fault level monitoring method [8], etc. As in [9], fault cur-
rent limiter (FCL) is used in microgrid and set reasonable
limits of the impedance converters according to the specific
model and parameters of the system, to effectively reduce
the fault current that DG supplies. In some cases, this can
reduce the impact of microgrid on relay protection so that
protection can be operated correctly. As in [10], a new pilot
protection scheme is applied to solve the problem with DG
connected under high DG penetration level. The new
scheme introduces a master-slave structure. The kernel of
the new scheme is that a station-1evel master protection
device (MPD) is equipped at the protected distribution
substation and several field slave protection units (SPU) are
installed at the position of different circuit breakers.
B. Adaptive Protection of Microgrid
Adaptive protection refers to the protection that can
change performance, features or setting in real-time ac-
cording to the power system changes or fault status changes.
And adaptive protection is essentially a feedback control
system. The basic idea of adaptive protection is to protect
the power system to adapt as much as possible the changes,
to further improve the performance of the protection. The
following example in Figure 4 is to introduce the adaptive
protection in microgrid.
Figure4 Adaptive protection in the microgrid application
As shown in Figure 4, this is a simple microgrid diagram.
For the relay protection R2, when fault occurred at C, the
fault current flowing through protection R2 is provided by
the main grid, photovoltaic and battery, so the fault current
is relatively large. When fault occurred at bus A or adjacent
line B, the fault current flowing through the protection R2 is
mainly provided by the wind turbine and the fault current is
small. In addition, when the same fault occurred in the
grid-connected mode and the islanded mode of microgrid,
the fault current flowing through the protection R2 is also
not equal. Therefore, we need to update protection perfor-
mance, setting values, etc. to improve grid reliability ac-
cording to the power system changes or fault status changes.
Based on this, adaptive protection can meet our needs.
Adaptive current protection is mainly composed of adap-
tive instantaneous over-current protection and adaptive
over-current protection.
The setting value of traditional instantaneous
over-current protection is always higher than the maximum
three-phase short circuit current at line end under the max-
imum operation condition, while the testing of it is under
the minimum operation condition, so the sensitivity of the
protection is often low and this protection is always used as
aided protection. In order to get over the defect, the setting
of adaptive protection can be altered according to the actual
system operation condition and the type of short circuit. As
the type of short circuit and the impedance between protec-
tion installation location and system equivalent source can
be measured real-time, the calculated setting of adaptive
protection can be optimal according to system mode, and
this can improve the protection characteristics notably.
The setting value of traditional over-current protection is
always higher than the maximum load current, the restric-
tion of reset coefficient and self-start coefficient makes pro-
tection sensitivity lower. The setting and characteristic of
adaptive protection can be altered according to actual

2011The International Conference on Advanced Power System Automation and Protection

changing load current and operation condition, so the sensi-
tivity can be enhanced notably.
Therefore, we can see that adaptive current protection not
only can guarantee the selectivity of protection, but also
have a good sensitivity and reliability.
5 Conclusion
1) After the microgrid is connected with the distribution
network, the traditional radial network becomes a mul-
ti-source network. And the one-way flow of the traditional
distribution network becomes two-way flow, and the tradi-
tional segment protection compliance with timing will no
longer be valid.
2) After connected to distribution network, microgrid
will have an impact on the speed, selectivity, sensitivity,
reliability and autoreclosing of line protection. In addition,
the island effect of microgrid will also affect the distribution
network
3) The protection of microgrid can be divided into
system-level protection and unit-level protection, and mi-
crogrid protection device should be able to handle all types
of faults both in the grid-connected and the islanded modes
of operation. Adaptive protection of microgrid can well
realize the protective effect, thereby enhancing grid reliabil-
ity. However, research on protection of microgrid is still in
the exploratory stage and it need further study.
This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for
the Central Universities.
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