A Protective Optimal Coordination Scheme for Directional Overcurrent Relays Using Modified Seeker Algorithm

Abstract

The Protection coordination of overcurrent relays in power framework plays a crucial role to protect the electrical distribution systems by presenting primary as well as backup protection to system. The coordination between these relays should be kept at minimum to minimize the overall operating time and assure that the least power outages and damage is produced during the fault conditions. This is necessary to assure that the relays setting should not create an unintended operation and consecutive sympathy trips. This paper describes a Modified seeker algorithm (MSA) for optimal coordination of directional overcurrent relays and is formulated as an optimization problem. The robustness, effectiveness and efficiency of the MSA algorithm is tested on IEEE 8 bus. The results achieved by the modified seeker algorithm are compared with other evolutionary optimization techniques and it was observed that the proposed scheme is quite competent for dealing with such problems. From analyzing the obtained results, it has been found that the MSA approach provides the best and optimum solution. MSA has achieved a lot of relaxation to its easy implementation, modesty and robustness. MATLAB computer programming has been implemented to see the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.