A Review on Microgrid Protection Issues And Their Counter-measures

Microgrid has become progressively alluring among the consumers, consequently, there will be a tremendous increment in its installation in the forthcoming years. It has an advantage that it can be handled in both (i.e. Grid connected & Islanded Mode) modes of operations. Its main sources of power are PV arrays, Micro-turbines, Fuel-Cells, Battery storage system, Wind-turbines and the list continues. All these sources are called Distributed Energy Resources (DER’s). DER’s are some sort of localized energy sources, setup at the place where it is required. DER’s is one of the fastest emerging sources of power in the current story line. It has helped in dwindling our dependence in the utility grid, lessen the losses and chiefly, being cost-effective. But, the addition of DER’s has drastically affected the peculiarities of the microgrid, making its operation more complex and complicated in nature. Meanwhile, it has affected the protection system in an intense way. The bi-directional current flow, irregular shift of the system voltage-profile, alteration of the system-dynamic behavior and a lot more. Apart from this, the precipitous addition of the power electronic devices in the model affects the fault level and are slowly-&-gradually affecting the persuasiveness of the traditionally used protection system. The different obstacles and their consequences on the microgrid have been discussed.