TITLE:
Protection of Low Voltage CIGRE Distribution Network
AUTHORS:
Ghullam Mustafa Bhutto, Birgitte Bak-Jensen, Claus Leth Bak, Jayakrishnan R. Pillai
KEYWORDS:
Current Based Protection; Voltage Based Protection; Over Speed Protection; Fuse; Under Voltage Relay; Circuit Breaker; Switch Disconnector
JOURNAL NAME:
Smart Grid and Renewable Energy,
Vol.4 No.9,
December
31,
2013
ABSTRACT: High quality electricity services are the prime objectives in the modern power systems around the world. One of the main players to achieve this is the protection of the system which needs to be fast, reliable and cost effective. The study about the protection of the Low Voltage (LV) CIGRE distribution grid and networks like this has been proposed in this paper. The main objective of this paper is to develop protection against short circuit faults which might appear anywhere in the network. The protection of the power networks that comprises of renewable energy generation units is complicated because of the bidirectional flow of the current and is a challenge for the protection engineers. The selection of the protection devices in this paper is made to protect the network against faults in grid connected and island mode of operation. Ultra-fast fuses are proposed in order to protect the inverters used for Photovoltaic (PV) and battery applications. The disconnection of the PV solar panels when in island mode is made by proposing switch disconnecting devices. ABB is currently using these kinds of disconnection devices for the purpose of protecting solar panels against over voltages in the case of islanding. The over speed protection of the existing Wind Turbine Generator (WTG) in the CIGRE network in case of grid loss is also proposed in this paper.