Triple Current Control of Four-Wire Inverter-Interfaced DGs for Correct Fault Type Identification

Inverter-interfaced distributed generators (IIDGs) have fault current signatures that could jeopardize protective relaying. This paper unveils the failure of phase selection methods (PSMs) utilized by commercial relays in the presence of four-wire IIDGs, which adversely impacts the grid resiliency and reliability. A triple current controller (TCC) is proposed to regulate the inverter’s sequence currents during unbalanced faults to ensure accurate fault type identification. The negative- and positive-sequence components are extracted using a decoupled double synchronous reference frame (DDSRF)-based phase-locked loop (PLL). Further, a second-order generalized integrator (SOGI)-based PLL is employed for zero-sequence component synchronization. The negative- and zero-sequence reference currents are generated to force the angles of IIDG sequence currents to behave like those from synchronous generators (SGs) and abide by the inverter’s current limits. Consequently, commercial PSMs can correctly identify the fault type. The proposed TCC scheme pertains to four-wire as well as transformer-less IIDGs. A performance evaluation using time-domain simulations is conducted on a CIGRE benchmark system to confirm the success of the proposed control scheme under different fault conditions.