A Control Strategy to Mitigate the Sensitivity Deterioration of Overcurrent Protection in Distribution Networks With the Higher Concentration of the Synchronous and Inverter-Based DG Units

This article focuses on the indeterminate protection challenge of the sensitivity deterioration (SD) (also known as protection blindness) of the overcurrent protection (OCP) devices due to the large-scale integration of distributed energy resources (DERs) in the unbalanced distribution networks (DNs). The protection blindness of the OCP has been demonstrated through novel mathematical formulations to quantify the percentage of the SD for different types of distributed generation (DG) units and for the varying DG penetration levels. Furthermore, this issue has been realistically analyzed for the different fault impedances and DG locations to examine its impact on the existing OCP system. A mitigation strategy has been proposed to overcome the SD issue of the OCP protective devices (PDs) for a steadfast operation of the OCP devices without requiring costly upgrades of the protection system. This protection blindness issue has been explored and the mitigation strategies have been tested for both synchronous and inverter-based DGs using the IEEE standardized test feeders. The proposed mitigation strategy has been validated in the IEEE 34-bus test system. The simulation results prove the effectiveness of the proposed mitigation strategy to restore the protection coordination and suitability to improve grid resilience.