Differential Protection of Distributed Generation Interfaced Network

With the increase in electrical demand it is becoming more acceptable to use alternative energy/distributed energy sources to generate electricity. The problem with Distributed Networks (DNs) is that most of them are radial feeders. These radial networks require limited protection such as overcurrent and earth fault protection. When a Distributed Generation (DG) is connected to the Distributed Network (DN) then the radial nature of the system is lost and the fault current levels changes. The normal overcurrent and earth fault protection might not detect the faults when the DG is connected to the DN. This paper proposes introduction of differential protection due to its sensitivity and speed. A small network together with the protection scheme is modelled and simulated in MATLAB/SIMULINK to demonstrate the viability of the proposition.