Localized fault detection and classification technique for low voltage DC microgrid

Abstract

Integration of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) into conventional power system, results in variable amplitude and orientation of fault current posing new challenges to the traditional protection schemes for fault identification and classification in DC microgrid. In this paper, a new protection technique based on the change in reactor power determined at one end of the line during transient operation is proposed. Thus, the proposed technique employs localized measurement to detect and classify a fault, once the change in reactor power crosses a pre-defined threshold limit. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is determined for various faults and operational transients such as DER outage, load variation, AC-side faults etc. Finally, the simulation results are compared with schemes available in the literature, which further confirms the reliability and resilience of the proposed technique capable of identifying and classifying internal faults.