Application of Distance Protection on Active Distribution Networks: A Quantitative Comparison

One of the challenging research topics in active distribution networks (ADN) is the protection system. Therefore, in the literature, different approaches have been identified that aim to improve the operation of protective devices. This paper presents a comparative analysis of a conventional protection scheme and different proposed schemes based on distance protection, which apply to ADN. The results obtained by considering the single-line ground and double-line faults demonstrate that the conventional distance protection is highly vulnerable to malfunction when implemented in ADN, mainly due to the fact that it does not take into account ADN’s inherent characteristics, such as fault resistance or line unbalance. The other analyzed schemes have an adequate performance; however, some application issues must be deeply analyzed.