A Novel Convexified Linear Program for Coordination of Directional Overcurrent Relays

Abstract

A novel convexified linear program for optimal directional overcurrent relay (DOCR) coordination problem (CP) is proposed in this letter. The DOCR CP is a highly constrained nonlinear nonconvex problem which was solved using various traditional and heuristic optimization techniques in the past. In this letter, the CP is formulated as a linear programming problem without fixing the current pickup settings of DOCRs. The bilinear terms in the proposed formulation are written in the form of linear inequalities using McCormick envelopes. A sequential tightening algorithm is used to update the boundary limits of each parameter based on the solution obtained in each iteration, thus tightening the convex hulls and leading to solutions near to global optimum. The performance of the proposed method is applied to various test systems among which the results of three bus test system are presented.