Protection coordination in modern distribution grids integrating optimization techniques with adaptive relay setting

The constantly increasing integration of distributed generation (DG) using renewable energy resources, as well as the wide application of microgrid conception, has posed several challenging problems to the existing protection and control systems. Hence, modern adaptive protection schemes, capable of anticipating potential protection issues, are being developed and implemented. In this paper, the prospect of integrating optimal relay coordination methods with adaptive protection schemes is introduced. The efficacy of the proposed strategy is assessed by simulating two different DG penetrated networks with various configurations, and the obtained results are discussed in detail.