Electric Faults Detection Technique for DC Microgrids

Environmental concerns and a growing energy demand have prompted the building of renewable energy-based power generation. The DC Microgrid concept is more efficient because its small and localised structure causes very low transmission losses. Although the DC system has many advantages, developing an effective protection scheme remains a complex task due to the DC fault current characteristics. In general, faults such as pole-pole (P-P), pole-ground (P-G), and arc faults are more common in DC Microgrids. Rapid fault detection and protection are required in DC Microgrids, including photovoltaics (PV), fuels, batteries, and other energy sources connected to power electronic converters. This article presents a new approach to detecting and characterizing the faults in a five-bus ring-type DC Microgrid system. First, pole-pole and pole-ground faults are investigated and then detected and classified according to a differential current average-based algorithm. This study employs a PSS®SINCAL simulation software to enumerate the effectiveness of a proposed protection scheme. Finally, the proposed method is tested under various fault scenarios, including pole-ground and pole-pole faults. The results show that the electric faults in the DC Microgrid can be detected within a few milliseconds.