Performance Analysis of Optimization Technique for Protection Coordination in Single and Multi-Loop Distribution System

Protection in a distribution system is a very crucial issue as it is concerned with the reliability of supply. Overcurrent relays (OCR) are generally used as the primary protection for the distribution system due to simple and economical operation. On the occurrence of the fault, the fault current magnitude is increased abruptly which can be used in OCRs as an indication of fault identification. Relay coordination is defined as correct operating sequence of OCR in a system to avoid disconnection of unaffected section of power system. In meshed power system due to bi directional power flow relay coordination is a tough task for protection engineers. Initially when the distribution systems are normally radial in nature where the power flow is unidirectional relay coordination has been done manually but as the size of power system is going on increasing it becomes more complicated and time-consuming. To overcome this problem some linear and nonlinear programming techniques are used to get the optimal relay settings i.e time multiplier setting (TMS) and plug setting (PS). This paper made an effort to overcome relay coordination problem by using linear programming (LP) techniques and the optimal TMS values are obtained by using metaheuristic genetic algorithm (GA) approach. The proposed approach is evaluated on IEEE-3 and IEEE-4 bus single and multiple loop system and to validate the superiority of proposed algorithm the results are compared with simulated annealing (SA), firefly algorithm (FA), JAYA algorithm and cuckoo search (CS) optimization algorithm.