Multi-Agent System wide area protection considering distributed generation impact

Abstract

Using distributed generation (DG) is an interesting topic that has drawn attention of electrical engineers to itself in recent years. Presence of these generation units in distribution systems, although has many advantages and benefits, has to be applied after performing detailed studies and investigations due to their complexities in operation, control and protection of network. One of the most considerable problems that arise, when DG is used, is destructing efficiency and qualification of the existing protection system. The injected currents of DG to a distribution network lead to not having a radial network anymore, and consequently cause the network faces an inefficient protection system that was formerly designed according to the existing philosophy behind the distribution network. In this paper, firstly through analyzing the effects of distribution network with DG. Then basing on the multi-Agent system wide area protection scheme has been presented to provide the distribution networks including DG. With the introduction of the Multi-Agent System (MAS), it can make full use of computer intelligence and the inherent distribution of power system to build a protection system. In this protection scheme, longitudinal comparison protection as the achieve target, using the design principles of Agent to definition the respective functions of the Agent and design the communication mechanism between every Agent, as well as stipulate the action rules of Agent. This paper considers that the most important of Agent in the protection is to accelerate the protection action and isolation the fault section, which is capable of overcoming the problems caused by DG. And it suitable for distribution network protection scheme with DG.