A 5G communication based adaptive current differential protection for distribution networks

The fifth generation mobile communication (5G communication) technology provides new ideas for current differential protections of distribution networks by virtue of its advantages in bandwidth, transmission capacity, transmission rate and delay. This paper firstly introduces the characteristics of 5G communication technology and tests the 5G communication delay characteristics in a laboratory environment. The test results show that the 5G communication delay can meet the requirements of current differential protections in distribution networks. On this basis, an adaptive current differential protection is proposed, which includes the use of a distribution management system to realize the automatic topology identification of the distribution network and the automatic establishment of communication links. Finally, simulations on the RTDS platform are implemented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed protection scheme. Moreover, the protection scheme can still play a protective role when a single terminal of the distribution network fails or its communication fails, which greatly improves the reliability of the current differential protection of the distribution networks based on 5G communication.