An optimized proactive over-current protection scheme for modern distribution grids integrated with distributed generation units

The purpose of protection systems is to detach the damaged sections in case of a specific failure occurs in the network to ensure the continuity of electric supply. This can be done through adequate and proper planning between protective devices in the grid. The integration of Distributed Generation (DG) into the network has become a common practice in modern power grids for their economic and environmental aspects. However, the increased penetration of DG's influences and disturb the existed coordination and lead to unwanted tripping. Since the reliability and security of the protection system rely on acquiring the optimal coordination between protective devices, the consequence of increased complexity due to integration more DG's in the grid, necessitate the employment of intelligence techniques to achieve an optimum coordination for different network topologies. In this paper, Genetic Algorithm technique is purposed to optimize the coordination among protective devices in an existed distribution network (DN) to ensure reliable network performance. The proposed approach implemented in MATLAB and the results were compared and verified with ETAP results to validate results.