Adaptive Over Current Relay Protection in a PV Penetrated Radial Distribution System With Fuzzy GA Optimisation

The power distribution systems containing numerous over-current protection devices are usually programmed to act in a synchronized manner. The protection becomes a challenging task when distributed generation (DG) is incorporated, which increases the short circuit current magnitudes and disturbs the directionality of the current flow in the system. This paper proposes an adaptive protection setting incorporating Fuzzy Logic (FL) and the Genetic Algorithm (GA) to prevent the mal-operation of relays in PV penetrated radial distribution systems without redesigning the power system protection infrastructure. The method will update the relay characteristics in accordance with the varying capacity of the PV plant and load demand. The proposed method is compared with Linear and GA algorithms to show the technique's effectiveness.