Procedure of fault management in distribution networks with distributed generation

This paper proposes a procedure of adjustment of settings of overcurrent protections for distribution networks when distributed generation is incorporated in. Then, the procedure establishes the required steps to detect faults, isolate faulty zones, detect and create possible island modes, and finally restore the total operation of the system in order to meet the objective of protection's adaptation. So, the procedure identifies the required adjustments for the protection devices involved in the system. This paper also proposes a computational method to adjust automatically the settings of protective devices in an interactive simulation environment, which gives information about the system topology and its protection devices as well as messages in each step of the protection procedure after a change in the system, is detected. Finally, a conceptual architecture that would be required for the implementation of the independent adaptive protection scheme is presented.