Impact of Distributed Generation on Recloser-Fuse Coordination of Radial Distribution Networks

This paper presents a proposed protection system to the IEEE 33-bus radial distribution network. The protection system composed of fuses and reclosers at different locations in the network where the reclosers and fuses are kept coordinated for all possible locations of fault. All reclosers are of extremely inverse type but with different parameters. Also, fuses are of same type but with different parameters. This protection system is tested under the connection of DGs. These DGs, although having many benefits for the distribution networks, they can cause many problems, especially to the protection system, if they are not well-designed. One of the most serious problems the DGs can cause is the recloser-fuse miscoordination. In this paper the location and penetration level of DGs are varied and their effects on the reclosers-fuses coordination are tested under different fault locations. Finally, the paper studies the reclosers-fuses coordination of some literature studies which use different optimization techniques to determine the optimum sizes and locations of DGs on the same studied system. All simulation studies are performed on MATLAB script. The simulation results show that the connection of DGs with radial distribution systems may break the coordination between recloser and fuses even if optimum sizes and locations of these DGs are performed.