Electric Power Systems Research 224 (2023) 109632

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Electric Power Systems Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/epsr

A new protection scheme for feeders of microgrids with

inverter-based resources
Jigyesh Sharma, Tarlochan S Sidhu *
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ontario Tech University, Canada

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Due to the unavailability of a suitable relay for microgrid protection, various utilities are fitting available IEDs for
Microgrid protection the protection of microgrids. At present, microgrid protection is achieved using a combination of conventional
Distributed energy resources numerical relays. These numerical relays are not suitable for all kinds of microgrid architectures and do not
Digital relays
provide complete protection with inverter-based generators. Since these relays were designed considering the
Phasor measurement unit
fault characteristics of synchronous generators, they fail to respond to the fault characterized by inverter-based
generators. This paper proposes a new protection technique that is independent of the type of generating sources,
control philosophy of inverters as well as microgrid architecture. Simulations are performed using PSCAD/
EMTDC and performance of the protection scheme is also evaluated in real-time using RTDS. Pertinent results are
presented which demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

1. Introduction Some of the challenges to microgrid protection are due to limited

fault current and dynamic of fault current due to changes in topology, bi-
Microgrids are a part of present and future electrical power system directional flow of fault current, variations in short circuit level due to
networks. The expansion of the network with decentralized generation different operating modes such as islanded mode and grid-connected
using renewable sources of energy with inverter-based resources is mode, sympathetic tripping, loss of coordination [4,5,6,7]. Various
increasing rapidly. Renewable energy sources are not only used as practices followed for the protection of microgrids in North America are
backup generators but also provide a wide range of benefits when described in [8] and there is no single relay available commercially
formed as part of microgrids. Microgrids provide several environmental which fits all types of microgrid architecture.
and economic benefits to utilities as well as to consumers [1]. Before applying a protection strategy for a microgrid, it is important
Inverter-based distributed generators are broadly classified into to understand its fault characteristics under different operating sce­
grid-forming and grid-following inverters. Grid-following inverters are narios. In [9], protection of the microgrid is performed using inverse
grid connected inverters that track the frequency and phase of the time characteristics of IEC 60255, the inverse time characteristics based
voltage waveform of the grid and the output current is synchronized protection strategy is suitable when the magnitude of the fault current is
with the grid, hence it is fundamentally a current source system. The larger than the full load current of the feeder, otherwise, the time
types of commonly used grid following inverters are PV, wind, etc. operation of relay for fault current provided by the inverter which is 1 to
While grid-forming inverters generate their own reference which is 2 p.u [10,11,12], won’t provide quick isolation during a fault and co­
constantly adjusted according to the output power of the inverter [2]. ordination amongst the relays would be a challenge. In [13], negative
The most commonly used grid-forming inverters are battery storage sequence current and zero sequence current based protection strategies
energy system. In Reference [3], grid following inverter is defined as an are proposed but, in many inverters, due to filter modules, only positive
inverter to export the set power into the grid and the grid-forming sequence components are delivered to the control system and, negative
inverter is to regulate voltage and frequency. and zero sequence currents are suppressed to zero [14] except when
The protection of microgrids with inverter-based distributed gener­ zero-sequence currents can be supplied from grid through transformer
ators possess several challenges owing to their varied operation and neutral. In [15,16,17,18], principle of differential current is used for the
control philosophies. protection of feeders, since fault current itself is limited when the

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (T.S. Sidhu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsr.2023.109632
Received 9 December 2022; Received in revised form 10 March 2023; Accepted 21 June 2023
Available online 16 August 2023
0378-7796/© 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
J. Sharma and T.S. Sidhu Electric Power Systems Research 224 (2023) 109632

voltage-based protection alone is not adequate for microgrid protection.

The fault response of an inverter is governed by its adopted control
strategy and the control strategy changes as per the network re­
quirements [24]. The phase angle relationship between the voltage and
current of inverter-based resources is variable and cannot be predicted
[25], therefore, protection based on directional overcurrent and its
sequence components using commercially available relays may not be
Fig. 1. Feeder connected at two ends by an inverter-based generator.
adequate. The low magnitude of fault current in microgrids is a
well-known phenomenon when microgrids are operating with
inverter-based resources. The conventional relay which uses a torque
equation to establish the direction of current fails to generate enough
torque in an islanded mode of microgrid operation [26]. Presently,
microgrids are protected with commercially available relays since they
are the only option available to utilities and power system operators.
Some researchers have proposed non-traditional techniques [27]
including adaptive methods; however, these techniques still suffer from
limitations such as requiring up-to-date topology information or are only
applicable for special situations. For example, the technique proposed in
[28] is a directional comparison technique and is like a traditional
directional comparison method. It may not perform well in high
impedance faults and during change of angle due to control strategy of
Fig. 2. Sequence impedance diagram for a shunt fault at f.
inverters. Also, the technique requires detection of fault before deter­
mining its location. This adds another uncertainty as fault detection in
microgrid is operating with all inverter-based resources in grid-isolated
cases where fault current is low may not happen reliably. This paper
mode, the difference of current after accounting for CT errors and relay
develops a new relaying technique that is independent of control strat­
errors may not be sufficient for the relay to pick up. In [19,20], adaptive
egy, type of inverter, the capacity of the inverter and architecture of the
relaying is used for the protection of microgrids. This strategy de­
microgrid. Protection philosophy and relay characteristics are described
termines the setting based on changes in the operating scenario by
in Section 2. Section 3 covers test results on a benchmark microgrid, and
performing fault analysis and uses inverse time characteristics with the
Section 4 includes real time implementation results validated on
directional feature. Such a strategy is complex with meshed networks
RTDS™. Sections 5 and 6 discuss the comparison with a differential
and in real-time, as too many complex analyses need to be performed.
relay and practical implementation of the proposed scheme respectively
Also, the fault current signature changes when the inverter switches
and Section 7 concludes the paper.
between operating modes e.g. P-Q to V-F [21]. In [22], protection
strategy using the undervoltage function is proposed but during islanded
2. Proposed protection philosophy and relay characteristics
mode, the voltage in the network is severely affected by the type of fault
and location of the fault. Further, in islanded mode, the inverter regu­
The main inputs to a protection relay are voltage and current and
lates the voltage to meet the requirements of LVRT [23], hence

Fig. 3. Relay trip characteristics and trip logic.

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J. Sharma and T.S. Sidhu Electric Power Systems Research 224 (2023) 109632

Fig. 4. IEEE 9 bus test microgrid.

Fig. 5. Magnitude of voltages during a fault at F-1.

Fig. 6. Discrepant impedances for feeder between bus-4 and bus- 5 (a) before
the fault F1 and (b) during the fault at F-1(1-Φfault at 30% of line length). Fig. 7. Discrepant impedances for healthy feeders during a fault at F-1.

other electrical parameters are derived from these values. The proposed 2.1. No fault condition
scheme develops a new fault detection philosophy by estimating the
positive sequence ‘discrepant impedance’ of the feeder. The voltage and To explain the calculation of discrepant impedance, a two bus
current samples are obtained from two ends of the feeder. From these microgrid with both ends connected with inverter-interfaced distributed
sampled values, positive sequence ‘discrepant impedance’ is calculated generators is shown in Fig. 1. For a shunt fault at f at a distance x from
by the relay. The detailed theory and basis are described in the following Bus A, let the positive sequence voltages and currents at Bus-A and Bus-B
sections. be VA1, IA1, VB1, and IB1 respectively. Z1 is the positive-sequence
impedance of the feeder between Bus-A and Bus-B. The voltage VB1 at
Bus-B when current IA1 is flowing from Bus-A to Bus-B is: Fig. 1.
Sequence

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J. Sharma and T.S. Sidhu Electric Power Systems Research 224 (2023) 109632

Similarly, the voltage at Bus-A will be,

→ → ( ̅→→)
V A1 = V B1 − − IB1 Z1 (3)

Then,
̅→ ̅→
→ VB1 − VA1
− Z1 = ̅→ (4)
IB1
-Z1 is the positive-sequence impedance of the feeder as estimated
form Bus-B using positive-sequence voltages from Bus-A and Bus-B, and
positive-sequence current measured at Bus-B.
Fig. 8. Discrepant Impedances during a fault F-2 (L-L fault at 60% of line Under no fault condition, IA1 is equal to IB1. Therefore, during no
length) on feeder 4–5. fault condition it can be observed from (2) and (4), the summation of the
̅→ ̅→
impedances Z1 and − Z1 is zero. This summation of impedances is
termed as ‘discrepant impedance’. This impedance signifies the
discrepancy between the feeder impedances when estimated from one
end of the line and the other end of the line.

2.2. Fault condition

Assume a fault occurs at distance x from the Bus-A in Fig. 1. The

sequence impedance diagram for the faulted network is shown in Fig. 2.
Applying KVL in loop-1 and2, we get.
̅→ ̅→ ̅→ ̅→
VA1 = Vf 1 + IA1 xZ1 (5)
Fig. 9. Discrepant impedances for healthy feeders during a fault at F-2.
̅→ ̅→ →
VB1 = Vf 1 + (− IB1 )(1 − x)Z1 (6)

Simplifying Eqs. (5) and (6),

̅→ ̅→ ̅→ ̅→
VA1 − VB1 IB1 → IB1 → →
̅→ = ̅→Z1 − ̅→Z1 x + Z1 x (7)
IA1 IA1 IA1

̅→ ̅→ ̅→
VB1 − VA1 → → IA1 →
̅→ = − Z1 + Z1 x − ̅→Z1 x (8)
IB1 IB1
Where, Vf1 is positive sequence component of fault voltage at the
fault point f and Zf is a combination of negative sequence, zero sequence
or fault impedance depending upon the type of fault. Eqs. (7) and (8)
Fig. 10. Discrepant impedances during a fault at F-3(3-Φfault) on feeder 4–5. represent positive sequence impedance of the feeder when estimated
from Bus-A and Bus-B respectively. It is clear that the discrepant
impedance during a fault will not be zero as is the case during a no-fault
condition. Its exact value will depend on the fault location, currents and
voltages during the fault.

2.3. Discrepant impedance characterstics on R-X plane

The R-X plot for the discrepant impedance estimated by the relay is
shown in Fig. 3. Under no-fault condition, the circle shown is Fig. 3 shall
theoretically have zero radius and lie at the origin. However, when the
errors encountered during measurement of currents and voltages are
accounted, therefore, the circle of no-fault region will have a small
radius. For the studies reported in this paper, the radius of the no-fault
Fig. 11. Discrepant impedances for healthy feeders during a fault at F-3(3- region circle was selected to be 3% of the feeder impedance. In field
Φ fault). applications, a setting close to 3–5% should suffice depending on the
measurement accuracy of instrument transformers and required sensi­
→ → → →
V B1 = V A1 − I A1 Z1 (1) tivity of the relay. The relay will issue a trip command to the breaker
after five consecutive values of discrepant impedances are in fault region
Then, as depicted in Fig. 3 trip logic.
→ →
→ V A1 − V B1
Z1 = → (2) 3. Test results
I A1
The IEEE-9 bus test system with the combination of grid forming and
Z1 is the positive-sequence impedance of the feeder as estimated from
grid following inverters is developed in PSCAD. The model developed in
Bus-A using positive-sequence voltages from Bus-A and Bus-B, and
reference [8] with modifications is used as a test bed for this paper. Load
positive-sequence current measured at Bus-A.
data, generation data and line parameters are provided in Table-1 and

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J. Sharma and T.S. Sidhu Electric Power Systems Research 224 (2023) 109632

Fig. 12. (a) Discrepant impedances for feeder between bus-4 and bus- 5 during a high-resistance a fault at F-1 and (b) discrepant impedances of the healthy feeder.

Fig. 13. (a) Discrepant impedances for feeder between bus-4 and bus- 5 during a high-resistance a fault at F-2 and (b) discrepant impedances of the healthy feeders.

Fig. 14. A real time test platform.

Table-2 of Appendix. Fig. 4 describes the network architecture of ends of the line and discrepant impedances are estimated as discussed in
microgrid with three inverters, feeders and loads. Two inverters are Section 2. The proposed protection philosophy is validated for different
operating as grid-forming inverters and one inverter is operating as cases including different types of faults, fault locations, and type of
grid-following inverter. Each inverter is rated at 200 MVA. Solar and inverter present in the network both in gird-connected and islanded
wind resources were achieved using grid-following inverters whereas a modes.
battery source is connected via grid forming inverter. Loads connected
at buses are constant impedance loads. The lines are modeled using a pi
model. Positive-sequence voltages and currents are estimated at both

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J. Sharma and T.S. Sidhu Electric Power Systems Research 224 (2023) 109632

Fig. 15. Single line diagram of a medium voltage microgrid modeled for real time testing.

Fig. 16. Discrepant impedances of line 3–7 and line 2–6 during LG fault (Grid
connected mode).

3.1. Islanded mode of operation

In this operation mode, only inverter-based resources are connected

to bus-1, 2 and 3 and grid is out of service. The inverters at bus-1 and Fig. 17. Timing diagram depicting fault occurrence, relay operation and
bus-2 are grid forming and at bus-3 is grid following. The response of the breaker tripping.
proposed protection scheme for various types of faults at different lo­
cations is described in the following subsections. Theoretically, discrepant impedances should be zero. The feeders are
modelled using pi model, but the protection technique considers the
3.1.1. Different types of faults at different locations feeder impedances as lumped values neglecting capacitances. Because of
A single-phase fault, F-1, is simulated at 30% of line length of feeder this difference, it is not exactly zero during no-fault condition.
4–5 from bus 4. The voltages at various buses during the fault F-1 are During the fault, discrepant impedances are in the fault region which
shown in Fig. 5. Before the fault, the voltages at the buses are close to 1 can be observed in Fig. 6. The radius of the circle in Fig. 6 is not large,
p.u. The discrepant impedances before the fault and during the fault are this is due to the fact that the fault current in inverter dominated grid is
shown in Fig. 6. It is observed that the discrepant impedances estimated limited to 1.2 to 2 times the pre-fault current. During fault F-1 the
from two ends of line are in the no-fault region before the fault. discrepant impedances estimated for the healthy feeders are shown in

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J. Sharma and T.S. Sidhu Electric Power Systems Research 224 (2023) 109632

phase fault, F-3, is simulated near bus-5. The discrepant impedances

are shown in Fig. 10 and the discrepant impedances of healthy feeders
are shown in Fig. 11. The discrepant impedances are in the fault region
for the faulty feeder and are in the no-fault region for the healthy
feeders.

3.1.2. High resistance fault

To verify the performance of the proposed protection scheme during
high resistance faults, a L-G fault at F-1 is simulated with a fault resis­
Fig. 18. Discrepant impedances of line 3–7 and line 2–6 for a line-to-line to
tance of 6 Ω (about 200% of the feeder impedance). It can be observed
ground fault. from Fig. 12 that the discrepant impedances are in the fault region
indicating a fault. The discrepant impedances for healthy feeders during
this fault are in the no-fault region; all of them have small values indi­
Fig. 7. It is seen in Fig. 7, those discrepant impedances are in the vicinity
cating a no-fault condition.
of the origin and with the maximum value of 0.3 Ω which is only about
1% of the line impedances.
The values of discrepant impedances are not exactly at the origin due 3.2. Grid connected mode of operation
to the effect of fault F-1 on the rest of the network. Since the microgrid is
operating in islanded mode, with all inverter-based resources, a fault in In grid connected mode, when a single-phase fault occurs at F-2 on
any part of the network affects the voltages and currents in other parts of feeder 4–5, the discrepant impedances estimated by the relay are shown
the network because of low short circuit capacity and zero inertia. in Fig. 13. It is observed that before the fault the impedances are in the
Despite this, the proposed relay scheme is able to operate properly no-fault region and during fault, the impedances are in the fault region,
without any maloperation. while discrepant impedances for the rest of the feeders are in the no-fault
When a LL fault, F-2, is simulated at 60% of the line length from bus 4 region.
on feeder between buses 4 and 5, the estimated discrepant impedances
for feeder 4–5 are depicted in Fig. 8 clearly indicating a fault. 4. Real time implementation
The discrepant impedances for the rest of the system are shown in
Fig. 9 and their values are in the no-fault region. To further verify the proposed protection scheme, a real-time test
Three phase faults are severe faults in a power network. A three- platform is developed as represented in Fig. 14. The real time

Fig. 19. Differential relay (alpha plane) response for fault F-2 in Fig. 4.

Fig. 20. Current for a L-G fault on line 3–7 during grid-connected mode.

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J. Sharma and T.S. Sidhu Electric Power Systems Research 224 (2023) 109632

Fig. 21. Current for a L-G fault on line 3–7 during islanded mode.

Fig. 22. Discrepant Impedances for a L-G fault on line 3–7 during a) Islanded mode and b) grid connected mode.

Table 2
Line parameters of the test system in Fig. 4.
Sequence R (ohm/m) XL((ohm/m) XC(ohm/m)
4
Positive 1.07 × 10− 4.27 × 10− 4 2.5448 × 106
4
Zero 5.35 × 10− 1.153 × 10− 3 4.1642 × 106

Note: Line length between any two bus is 10 km.

Table 3
Line parameters of the test system in Fig. 15.
Sequence R (ohm/m) XL((ohm/m) XC(ohm/m)
− 4 − 4
Positive 1.73 × 10 4.317 × 10 3.626 × 106
Zero 3.5 × 10− 4 1.79 × 10− 3 8.846 × 106

Fig. 23. (a) Centralized protection scheme (b) Decentralized protec­

tion scheme.
GPC rack is connected through a global bus hub (GBH) cable and fiber
optic (FO) cables. The samples of voltages and currents are exchanged
through GTNeT on sampled values protocol at a rate of 960 HZ.
Table 1
Load and generation values of the test system in Fig. 4.
Bus Bus Voltage (kV) Inverter/ Load P (MW) Q (MVAR) 4.1. Real-time experiment results
Bus-1 16.5 GFM 66.9 16.1
Bus-2 18 GFL 163.6 5.0 A medium voltage microgrid [29], shown in Fig. 15, is modeled in
Bus-3 13.8 GFM 89.9 − 5 RSCAD to demonstrate and evaluate the proposed protection scheme.
Bus-5 230 Fixed load 125 5 The microgrid consists of a 2 MW wind turbine generator,1.7 MW PV
Bus-6 230 Fixed load 90 3
generator, and 3 MW diesel generator. All the generation sources are
Bus-8 230 Fixed load 100 3
interfaced with the network through a 0.69/13.2 kV transformer. Line
parameters of feeders are given in Table-3 of Appendix. The microgrid is
implementation is carried out to verify the impact on relays of the operated in grid connected mode as well as in islanded mode by oper­
healthy feeder when the breakers of the faulty feeder clear the fault. The ating beaker M-1.
real time system comprises of GPC rack, GTWIF and GTNeT cards which
are used for relay implementation while Novacor® which consists of 4.1.1. Grid connected mode of operation
GNETx2 is used for power system network modeling. Novacor® and Multiple cases have been simulated in grid connected mode of
operation of a microgrid. The samples of voltages and currents of bus B-3

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J. Sharma and T.S. Sidhu Electric Power Systems Research 224 (2023) 109632

and B-7 are provided to the relay. The discrepant impedances are exchange bewteen relays, PMUs and merging units can be wired or
computed by the relay. wireless depending on the geographical location of the microgrid.
It can be observed from Fig. 16 that discrepant impedances for line
3–7 before the fault are in the no-fault region and once the fault occurs, 7. Conclusions
the values are in the fault region. The relay computes discrepant im­
pedances continuously. Once fault strikes on the feeder 3–7, the This paper presents a new microgrid feeder protection technique that
discrepant impedances are in the fault region and the relay issues a trip uses positive sequence voltages and currents from both ends of the
signal to the breaker after 1/4 cycle and once the relay issues a trip, the feeder. The technique estimates the discrepant impedance of the feeder
breaker clears the fault in 6 cycles as shown in Fig. 17. However, as seen under protection. The proposed protection scheme has been tested using
in Fig. 16, the discrepant impedances of adjacent healthy line 2–6 is not PSCAD simulations as well as via real-time implementation. Results
affected and are in the no-fault region before the fault and after fault demonstrated the effectiveness of the technique in detecting and
clearance. clearing faults in a variety of situations i.e. islanded mode, grid-
connected mode and for various faults including high-resistance faults.
4.1.2. Islanded mode of operation The results prove that the proposed protection scheme is effective irre­
It can be observed from Fig. 18 that the discrepant impedances for spective of the type of inverter, microgrid topology, inverter control
line 3–7 computed during the fault are in the fault region, while philosophy, level of inverter-based generation and mode of operation.
discrepant impedance on the healthy feeder 2–6 are in the no-fault re­ The proposed scheme is fast to detect all types of faults in less than ½
gion before, during and after the fault is cleared. cycle. The technique can be implemented as a centralized, decentralized
protection scheme or as a hybrid protection scheme.
5. Comparison with differential protection
Author credits
In industry, two types of differential protection are commonly used
a) current differential using an alpha plane characteristic [30] and b) Tarlochan Sidhu: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Project
percentage differential relay. As demonstrated in this section, both dif­ administration, Writing – review/editing, Supervision
ferential protection methods do not protect a microgrid in the islanded Jigyesh Sharma: Simulations, Writing – Initial draft, Data curation,
mode of operation. On the other hand, the protection technique pro­ Formal analysis , Validation
posed in this paper works properly in both islanded and grid connected
modes. To verify this problem associated with line differential relay with
an alpha plane characteristic, a L-L fault at F-2 is simulated on a test Declaration of Competing Interest
microgrid shown in Fig. 4, and the response of the relay is shown in Fig
19. The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
The trajectory of the operating quantity doesn’t go into the trip zone, interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
therefore relay does not operate for this fault. As shown in Fig. 8. the work reported in this paper.
discrepant impedances for the same fault fall in the fault region and the
proposed relay will trip. To demonstrate the problem with the per­ Data availability
centage differential relay, a LG fault is simulated on line 3–7 of a
microgrid shown in Fig. 15 when DG capacity is 2 MW and load L-6 is The authors are unable or have chosen not to specify which data has
removed. been used.
During grid-connected mode, the fault current is Imax= 2.33 kA and
during islanded mode, it is Imin=0.1 kA which can be observed from
Fig. 20 and Fig. 21 respectively. The setting of the differential relay is Appendix:. Test System Data
chosen to be 0.065 times the maximum fault current [31]. Therefore, the
differential relay is set at, 0.065x2.33kA which is 0.151 kA. The set value Table 1, 2 and 3
is higher than the minimum fault current observed when the microgrid
is in the islanded mode of operation. Therefore, the differential will not References
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