A Controller Hardware-in-the-Loop Based Approach for Testing Distribution System Protection

Protection plays a vital role in power systems as it ensures the effective management of abnormalities across all hierarchy levels of power system, including generation, transmission, and distribution. Failure to implement appropriate protective measures can result in cascaded outages, leading to complete blackouts or partial outages in power supply. The focus of the present study is centered around modeling and analyzing the protection system performance applied to a 5-bus distribution system. The testing of protection and control mechanism is significant and Controller hardware- in-the-loop (C-HIL) is a significant platform to test protection operation under varied faults and network conditions to ensure enhanced reliability of the protection system. In this study, the Typhoon HIL real-time simulator is employed to construct a virtual environment that accurately mirrors the behavior of a power system. In addition to simulation, the study places significant emphasis on the validation of digital protection systems through the use of C-HIL testing. Through this validation process, the study ensures testing of the digital protection systems function as intended so that they can effectively respond to abnormal conditions within the distribution system.