Electrical Engineering

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00202-019-00841-6

ORIGINAL PAPER

A protection strategy for inverter-interfaced islanded microgrids

with looped configuration
Hamed Karimi1 · Ghazanfar Shahgholian1 · Bahador Fani1 · Iman Sadeghkhani1 · Majid Moazzami1

Received: 17 November 2018 / Accepted: 24 September 2019

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019

Abstract
Development of an efficient protection strategy is one of the main barriers in paving the way for the implementation of
inverter-based microgrids. The limited fault current of voltage-sourced converter (VSC) units as the sole fault feeding sources
in the islanded mode of operation makes the fault detection difficult for conventional overcurrent-based protection system. On
the other hand, bidirectional power flow due to the presence of distributed energy resource units and looped configuration of
microgrids results in miscoordination of the overcurrent relays. To address these problems, this paper proposes a protection
strategy for islanded inverter-interfaced looped microgrids. By monitoring the fault-imposed component of VSC current,
the proposed scheme quantifies the severity of fault condition as the fault detection criterion. To preserve the protection
coordination among available overcurrent relays, the proposed protection scheme adaptively changes the limiting level of
hybrid reference frame limiter of the VSC control system proportional to their distances to the fault point. The proposed
protection scheme is local, and there is no need for any change in the commercially available overcurrent protection relays.
The reliable performance of the proposed protection strategy is assessed on the simulation model of a looped microgrid
network.

Keywords Distributed energy resource (DER) · Fault detection · Looped microgrid · Overcurrent relay · Protection
coordination · Voltage-sourced converter (VSC)

List of symbols k Sampling step

CB Circuit breaker N Number of samples within a moving window
CLF Current limiting factor OCR Overcurrent relay
DER Distributed energy resource OSI Overall severity index
FDI Fault detection index Sbase Nominal power of DER
HRFL Hybrid reference frame limiting Td Time delay of Delta filter
I Relay current Ts Sampling time
IPS Plug setting current t Operating time of relay
pu
ILref RMS value of inductor current reference UF Amplitude of fault component of DER output volt-
i Lref Inductor current reference age
pu
iL  ref
Limited inductor current reference UN Amplitude of normal-running component of DER
io Output current output voltage
pu Vbase Nominal voltage of DER
i o,F Fault component of output current
pu
i o,FI Fault-imposed component of output current vo Output voltage
pu voref Output voltage reference
i o,N Normal-running component of output current
VSC Voltage-sourced converter
i th Current threshold
ξ Fault detection threshold
B Ghazanfar Shahgholian
shahgholian@iaun.ac.ir
1 Department of Electrical Engineering, Najafabad Branch,
Islamic Azad University, Najafabad 85141-43131, Iran

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1 Introduction
The need for paving a way to increase energy security and to
decrease the environmental concerns leads to great attention
to distributed energy resource (DER) units [1–3]. Deple-
tion of fossil fuels, the increment of greenhouse gas, and
competitive electricity market result in significant research
on renewable DERs. Since the output power of these units
is DC or uncontrolled AC, they are interfaced to the host
network through a power-electronic interface converter com-
monly acting as a voltage-sourced converter (VSC) [4]. To
coordinately control of DER units and to increase the relia-
bility, the microgrid concept has emerged as a set of DERs
and loads [5,6]. A microgrid can operate in both islanded
and grid-connected modes of operation. In the former oper-
ating mode, VSC controls the voltage and frequency of the
microgrid while it manages the injected real and reactive
power of DERs in the latter operating mode [7]. On the other
hand, with the development of control and protection algo-
rithms, the microgrid configuration can be both radial and
looped/mesh. Flexibility and reliability are the main factors
for adopting the microgrid configuration. Due to existence
of several paths for delivering electric power to the loads,
the looped configuration is a proper choice to enhance these
features [8].
One of the main challenges of the microgrid is an effi-
cient protection system that is able to detect and isolate the
faulty section with acceptable speed. The origins of these
challenges are the low fault current and bidirectional cur-
rent flow of inverter- interfaced islanded microgrids. In the
absence of the utility grid, the fault current only flows from
the DER units. Due to the low thermal inertia of VSCs, the
fault current contribution of inverter- interfaced DERs is typ-
ically limited to 2–3 times the nominal current [9]. The low
fault current of these microgrids may be insufficient to trigger
the conventional overcurrent relay or increases its operating
time. On the other hand, the integration of DER units into
Fig. 1 Microgrid protection techniques in different groups
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Electrical Engineering
distribution network leads to bidirectional power flow. This
issue that is more severe in the looped configuration degrades
the performance of the conventional protection system that
is designed for radial networks.
Up to now, various protection techniques have been pro-
posed that can be broadly classified into eight groups: (i)
adaptive protection, (ii) differential protection, (iii) voltage-
based protection, (iv) symmetrical components-based pro-
tection, (v) external device-based protection, (vi) distance
protection, (vii) DER power management, and (viii) non-
conventional protection. Figure 1 shows the different meth-
ods of these groups.
Group I automatically updates the protection system set-
tings. In [10], an adaptive protection scheme is proposed
that uses the fault component of current. An adaptive
overcurrent protection scheme for distribution systems
is proposed in [11]. The need for communication infras-
tructure and updating the settings during each change in
the microgrid are the main disadvantages of the adaptive
protection schemes.
Group II detects the fault by measuring the differential
quantities which the main ones are differential cur-
rent [12] and differential energy [13,14]. The latter is
less sensitive to synchronization error among measure-
ments. Ref. [15] proposes a protection scheme based on
differential impedance. Ref. [16] shows that differential
protection based on the symmetrical components of cur-
rent presents best performance over the differential RMS,
power factor angles, symmetrical components of voltage,
and total harmonic distortion (THD). Similar to the pre-
vious group, the differential protection suffers from the
need for the communication link that increases the cost
and reduces the reliability of the protection scheme.
Group III is based on the voltage measurements. The
fault condition is detected using the voltage drop [17–20]
and voltage THD measurements [21]. In [22], the fault
Electrical Engineering
detection is performed by transferring the voltage signals
to dq axes and comparing them with the reference volt-
age. The possibility of mal-operation for voltage drops
caused by the no fault conditions such as a load switch-
ing and no distortion of voltage waveform in the case of
using enhanced current limiting schemes in VSC control
system are the main barriers affecting the development
of this group.
Group IV is based on the using symmetrical compo-
nents. In [23], the grounding fault and double line fault
types are detected using the zero-sequence and negative-
sequence components of current, respectively. Inability
in detecting three-phase faults and mal-operation due to
inherent unbalanced nature of the distribution network
are the main disadvantages of this method. Ref. [24]
proposes a faulty feeder location method based on mod-
ifying the directional protection based on the phase
differences between the positive-sequence fault-imposed
components of bus voltage and feeder current.
Group V employs the external devices to equalize the
fault current level in both grid-connected and islanded
modes of operation for employing the same protection
system. Either using the storage devices such as the bat-
tery, supercapacitors, and flywheel, the fault current level
in the islanded mode of operation increases [25–27] or
using the fault current limiters, the fault current contri-
bution of the main grid decreases. However, the need for
an accurate algorithm to detect islanding condition and
high cost are the main disadvantages of this group.
Group VI proposes to use the distance relays in dis-
tribution networks and to define the protection zones
based on DER location [28]. The impedance differential
and inverse-time low-impedance schemes are proposed
in [16]. In [29], the possibility of employing distance
protection in grid-connected and islanded microgrids is
investigated. Pilot-based distance protection is proposed
in [30] for meshed distribution networks in the presence
of DER units. However, the effect of fault resistance
on the calculated impedance by the relays especially in
distribution networks where the lines are short and the
possibility of high-impedance fault occurrence is high
and need for communication in the pilot-based scheme
are the main disadvantages of this group.
Group VII is based on management of generated power
of DER unit during fault condition. References [31,32]
propose to disconnect DERs during the fault condition,
but they are not applicable for islanded mode of operation
where DER units are the sole power supplies. Also, con-
trol of output current of DGs during the fault condition
is proposed in [33,34].
Group VIII consists of non-conventional protection
schemes [35]. The protection strategy proposed in [36] is
based on the type-2 fuzzy logic. Reference [37] uses two
support vector machines for fault detection and location.
In [38], a bi-level multi-agent system-based protection
scheme is proposed to preserve the protection coordi-
nation in the presence of DER units. The methods of
this group suffer from the high computational burden and
need for training data.
This paper proposes a protection strategy for islanded
microgrids with the looped configuration. The proposed
scheme relies on the control system and output signals of
VSCs and does not impose the extra cost. By monitoring the
VSC current in a moving data window, the fault condition
is detected by measuring the overall severity of a change
in the VSC current to address the low fault detection sen-
sitivity of overcurrent relays. To identify the faulty feeder
and to preserve the protection coordination among the avail-
able conventional overcurrent relays in the presence of DERs
in the looped microgrid, a DER power management-based
method (Group VII) is proposed. In this scheme, the injected
fault current of VSCs is changed in such a way that the cur-
rent flowing through those relays which are closer to the fault
point will be greater than other relays. To this end, the current
limiting level of the hybrid reference frame limiting (HRFL)
scheme is adaptively changed based on the fault location.
The main features of the proposed protection strategy are as
follows.
• It is effective for inverter-interfaced looped microgrids
with limited fault current and bidirectional fault current
flow.
• It detects the fault condition with proper sensitivity by
monitoring the available measurement of VSC current;
• It is implemented in VSC control system and does not
require additional device; and
• It does not require the communication link and can be
implemented in microgrids with commercially available
overcurrent relays.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2
describes the study microgrid and VSC control system.
The main protection challenges of islanded VSC-interfaced
looped microgrids are presented in Sect. 3. Section 4 is
dedicated to the proposed fault detection and protection coor-
dination schemes. The simulation results are carried out in
Sect. 5 to verify the effectiveness of the proposed protection
strategy. Finally, the paper is concluded in Sect. 6.
2 Looped microgrid test model
Figure 2 shows the single-line diagram of the four-wire
study microgrid [39]. Using the looped configuration, four
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Fig. 2 Study looped microgrid

Table 1 Study microgrid

Parameter DER1 DER2 DER3 DER4
parameters
Nominal power (kW) 10 3 12 15
Nominal line-to-line voltage (V) 400 400 400 400
DC bus voltage (V) 800 800 800 800
Fundamental frequency (Hz) 50 50 50 50
Switching frequency (kHz) 5 5 5 5
Filter inductance (mH) 2 0.6 2.4 3
Filter capacitance (μF) 15 50 12.5 10
Real power droop coefficient 2 × 10−4 6.67 × 10−4 1.66 × 10−4 1.33 × 10−4
Reactive power droop coefficient 3.25 × 10−3 10.83 × 10−3 2.7 × 10−3 2.16 × 10−3

electronically interfaced DER (EC-DER) units with various A

t= P + B, (1)
ratings supply three loads in the islanded mode of operation. I
−1
IPS
The real powers of loads 1–3 are 13.5, 4.5, and 17.5 kW while
their reactive powers are 6.5, 2.55, and 0.8 kVAr, respec-
where t is the operating time of the relay. I is the relay
tively. The cable resistance and inductance are 1.268 /km
current and IPS is its plug setting current. A, B, and P are
and 0.422 /km; the length of lines 1–6 are 300, 100, 100,
constant parameters that determine the shape of the charac-
100, 200, 50 m, respectively. The parameters of the DER
teristic curve. In this paper, the adopted characteristic curve
units are presented in Table 1.
of the OCR relays is the extremely inverse type.

2.2 DER control system

2.1 Protection system structure
Distribution networks are commonly protected using the
overcurrent relays (OCRs). If the feeder current is within the
operating region of the relay, the OCR commands to open its
associated circuit breaker (CB) after a time delay based on
the time-current characteristic curve of the relay. In accor-
dance with the IEC 60255 [40], the characteristic curve of an
OCR relay is expressed as
Due to flexibility in the production of high-quality power,
the VSC units have gained great attention among industries
as the DER interfaces [41]. In the islanded mode of opera-
tion, the VSC works in the voltage control mode to regulate
the frequency and amplitude of microgrid voltage. Figure 3
shows the typical control structure of the VSC control sys-
tem. This system consists of an outer power control loop
and the inner voltage and current control loops. The former
produces the frequency and amplitude of voltage reference

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Electrical Engineering

Fig. 3 Structure of VSC control

system

i  L, j = CLF j × i L,
ref
voref for inner control loops. The frequency-real power and ref
j ; j = a, b, c, (2)
voltage-reactive power droop characteristics are commonly
used for this purpose [42]. The voltage control loop regulates where
the VSC output voltage vo by producing the inductor current
reference i Lref for the current control loop. Finally, the cur- ⎧
⎪
⎨ √ th
i
, IL,
ref > √i th
rent controller produces the reference signal for generating j
CLF j = 2 × IL, j
ref 2 ; j = a, b, c, (3)
the VSC switching signals. To enhance the power sharing ⎪
⎩1,
accuracy and dynamic behavior of the system, the virtual otherwise
impedance control loop is added to the VSC control system
that reduces the voltage reference proportional to the output i  ref ref
L, j is the limited inductor current reference and IL is the
current i o . ref
RMS value of i L . In the cases of using synchronous and
stationary reference frames, an auxiliary controller imple-
mented in natural reference frame works instead of the main
2.3 VSC current limiting VSC control system during an overcurrent condition. Since
no crest clipping occurs and the voltage control loop remains
Due to the low thermal inertia of VSC, its filter inductor closed in all phases, HRFL strategy presents high-quality
current should be limited to prevent damage of semiconduc- waveforms without the occurrence of any overvoltage.
tor switches. High cost and low reliability of the external
device-based limiters have increased the popularity of the
VSC control system-based limiters. These limiters usually 3 Protection challenges of
limit the inductor current reference of VSC using the cur- inverter-interfaced islanded microgrids
rent limiter block of Fig. 3. Three of most common control
system-based current limiters are instantaneous saturation, The conventional OCR-based protection system is designed
latched, and HRFL strategies [9]. Through the crest clip- based on the radial power flow and no presence of load-
ping, the instantaneous saturation limiting strategy prevents side generation units; the protection system operates based
i Lref from increasing beyond the current threshold or maxi- on the amplitude of feeder current and OCRs are coordinated
mum allowable peak current i th . However, poor quality of based on unidirectional power flow. However, there are many
voltage and current waveforms and low accuracy in current differences between a microgrid and the distribution network.
limiting are the main disadvantages of this limiter. The oper- High penetration of DER units, bidirectional power flow, and
ating principle of the latched limiting strategy is to replace the possibility of operation in islanded mode are the main
the i Lref with a pre-defined inductor current reference during ones. Due to the limited current of EC-DER units, their effect
overcurrent conditions. However, the occurrence of overvolt- on the fault current may be neglected in the grid-connected
age in the healthy phase(s) is the main disadvantage of this mode of operation because their currents may be negligible
limiter. To address the problems of these limiters, [9] pro- with respect to fault current contribution of the main grid.
posed the HRFL strategy that limits the i Lref in the natural However, in the islanded mode of operation, the short-circuit
reference frame using a current limiting factor (CLF) as level is low and DER units affect the fault current.

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Fig. 4 Direction of fault current

in study microgrid. a before
opening of CB1 (looped
structure) and b after opening of
CB1 (radial structure)

(a)

(b)

Fig. 5 Monitor of VSC output

current signal in the moving
data window

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Electrical Engineering

The low fault current in the islanded VSC-interfaced

microgrid makes the fault detection difficult because the
conventional OCRs operate based on the current amplitude;
therefore, a fault condition may not be detected or the fault
clearance time increases. Also, reducing the threshold may
result in nuisance tripping. On the other hand, regarding the
looped structure of study microgrid and presence of several
DER units in the network, the direction of the fault current in
OCRs locations is different and the fault point is fed from both
forward and backward directions. In this condition, the fault
current flowing through the OCRs is not proportional to their
distances to the fault location. Regarding the looped structure
of study microgrid, when the CBs near the fault point isolate
the faulty feeder, the microgrid structure changes to radial
type. It results in a change in fault current direction that this
change leads to protection miscoordination. One of the worst
scenarios is when the fault occurs near the DER unit with the
lower rating. In this case, CBs near the DER units with higher
ratings may wrongly isolate a healthy feeder. As shown in
Fig. 4a, when a fault occurs at line 1, first, CB1 as the closet
CB to the fault point is opened using the associated OCR.
After the operation of CB1, the microgrid structure changes
to radial and the fault current direction changes, as shown in
Fig. 4b. In this condition, depending on the rating and loca-
tion of DERs and OCR settings, the CBs of a healthy line
may be wrongly opened. Fig. 6 Flowchart of the proposed fault detection algorithm

4 Proposed protection scheme where

4.1 Fault detection algorithm Sbase

Ibase = , (5)
Vbase
The limited fault current of EC-DERs leads to one of the
main protection challenges of islanded microgrids. Due to
and Sbase and Vbase are the nominal power and voltage of
the absence of high fault current contribution of the main net-
DER, respectively.
work, the conventional overcurrent protection devices cannot
When a fault occurs, the VSC output current changes with
detect the fault condition or detect this condition without
respect to its pre-fault value. The difference between the
proper speed. Reducing the threshold may result in normal
post-fault and pre-fault values is known as the fault-imposed
load switching wrongly interpreted as a fault event by these
component. It is independent of the pre-fault current and
devices. To address the problem, this paper proposes a fault
keeps the fault signature. Consequently, during a fault con-
detection algorithm that is based on monitoring the transient
dition, the output current signal consists of fault-imposed and
response of DER current. The proposed strategy is inspired
normal-running components as
from [43] that measures the overall severity of an episode
of care. The reason for adopting this algorithm is the differ-
ence in transient response during a fault condition and a load pu pu pu
i o,F (kTs ) = i o,FI (kTs ) + i o,N (kTs ), (6)
switching event. The proposed fault detection strategy is local
and only requires the available output current measurement.
In the first step of the proposed algorithm, the output cur- pu pu pu
where i o,F , i o,FI , and i o,N are the fault, fault-imposed, and
rent of DER is normalized as normal-running components of output current, respectively.
Ts and k are the sampling period and sampling step, respec-
pu io tively. The fault-imposed component can be calculated using
io = , (4) the Delta filter [44] as
Ibase

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(a) (b)
Fig. 7 a Output current and h calculated for DER1 during an a–b–c–g fault and b output current and OSI calculated for DER3 during an a–g fault

pu pu pu
i o,FI (kTs ) = i o (kTs ) − i o (kTs − Td ), (7)

where Td is the time delay of Delta filter. Figure 5 shows

pu
that absolute values of i o,FI signal samples are monitored
by a moving data window to quickly detect any change in
signal form. To make a trade-off between the accuracy and
speed, the length of the moving window is adopted equal to
a half cycle. To calculate the fault-imposed components, the
time delay of the Delta filter is also considered equal to a
half cycle; thus, each sample is reduced by the associated
sample in the previous half cycle. The overall severity of a
disturbance is calculated as

N 
 
pu
OSI = 1 − 1 − i o,FI (kTs ) , (8)
k=1
Fig. 8 Output current and h calculated for DER4 of the study microgrid
where OSI is the overall severity index and N is the num- during load 3 switching
ber of samples within a moving window. Unlike the adding
or averaging current samples over a moving data window,
A disturbance is considered as a fault event if h > ξ ,
this multiplicative multi-attribute utility model prevents the
where ξ is the fault detection threshold. Since OSI is calcu-
dilution of the effect of severe fault-imposed samples on the
lated in each phase independently, the faulty phase(s) can be
overall score by the non-severe ones. Also, the increase in
identified based on its value. The flowchart of the proposed
output current does not necessarily lead to a high overall
fault detection algorithm is shown in Fig. 6.
score. During normal operation, OSI = 0 because the fault-
imposed component is zero. However, when a disturbance
occurs, OSI increases depending on the disturbance severity. 4.2 Protection coordination strategy
The fault detection index (FDI) is expressed as
According to Sect. 3, the OCR-based protection system coor-
     
dinately operates if the current flowing through the relay near
pu pu pu
h = max OSI i oa,FI , OSI i ob,FI , OSI i oc,FI . (9) the fault is greater than the current flowing through other
relays. To this end, the injected current of EC-DERs should

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Electrical Engineering

Fig. 9 Output current

waveforms of all DERs
equipped with conventional
HRFL strategy during an
a–b–c–g fault

Fig. 10 Current flowing

through all CBs of the study
microgrid equipped with
conventional HRFL strategy
during an a–b–c–g fault

be proportional to their distances to the fault point; the shorter
distance to the fault point, the higher injected fault current to
the network. Due to the need for limiting the VSC current for
preventing damage to its semiconductor switches, [39] mod-
ifies the latched limit strategy using a voltage-based droop
characteristic. The proposed protection system is based on
the modification of HRFL strategy using a voltage term to
simultaneously satisfy both current limiting and protection
coordination requirements.
The modified current limiting factor is expressed as
pu pu
where UN and UF are the amplitudes of normalized
normal-running and fault components of DER output volt-
age, respectively. It should be mentioned that all voltage and
current signals of the DER control system are normalized
based on the nominal power and voltage of each DER. If
the current reference exceeds its threshold in one phase, the
associated CLF is adaptively calculated using (10). The pres-
pu pu
ence of voltage term UN − UF results in limiting level of
the DER injected current is adaptively determined based on
its distance to the fault point. Consequently, those EC-DERs
that are closer to the fault point more contribute to the fault
current than others.
⎧ 0.5
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪
1
⎪
⎨ U pu − U pu
N, j F, j i th 5 Performance evaluation
CLF j = √ , IL,
ref > √ ; j = a, b, c,
⎪
⎪ ×
ref,pu j
2
⎪
⎪ 2 I L, j
⎪
⎩1,
This section is dedicated to evaluating the effectiveness of the
otherwise proposed protection scheme. The islanded looped microgrid
(10) of Fig. 2 is simulated using MATLAB/Simulink and ETAP.

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(a)
Fig. 11 Characteristic curve of OCRs of study microgrid equipped with conventional HRFL strategy during an a–b–c–g fault. a Characteristic
curve of OCR associated with CB1 during fault and b Characteristic curve of OCRs associated with CB2, CB7, and CB8 after opening of CB1
The former software presents the time domain results while
the latter software presents the characteristic curves of OCRs.
Both fault detection and protection coordination functions
of the proposed scheme are evaluated through several case
studies. The length of moving data window and time delay
of Delta filter is 10 ms, the sampling time is 1 ms, and the
current and fault detection thresholds are adopted equal to
3 pu and 0.06 pu, respectively. All disturbances are simulated
at t = 4 s.
5.1 Fault detection performance
5.1.1 Case 1: three-phase-to-ground fault
This case study evaluates the performance of the proposed
fault detection strategy in the case of symmetrical faults. A
three-phase- to-ground fault with fault resistance of 0.5  is
simulated in line 1. Figure 7a shows the simulation results
for this scenario. h increases to 0.263 pu and the fault is prop-
erly detected. Thus, this condition is correctly interpreted as a
fault event by the proposed scheme. The fault detection time
is about 3 ms. As shown in Fig. 7a, during semi steady-state
condition after fault occurrence, the fault-imposed compo-
nent backs to zero because there is no difference between the
current samples in two consecutive half cycles.
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Electrical Engineering
(b)
5.1.2 Case 2: single-phase-to-ground fault
This case study is dedicated to evaluating the performance of
the proposed fault detection strategy during an asymmetri-
cal fault. A single-phase-to-ground fault (a–g) with the fault
resistance of 2  is simulated in line 4. Figure 7b shows the
DER1 output current and OSI for three phases. OSI in phase
a increases to 0.284 pu and exceeds its threshold while OSI
in healthy phases b and c does not. Thus, this condition is
correctly classified as an a–g fault event. The fault detection
time is about 4 ms. It verifies the proper sensitivity and speed
of the proposed fault detection scheme.
5.1.3 Case 3: three-phase load switching
The objective of this scenario is to investigate the perfor-
mance of the proposed scheme in the case of load switching.
To this end, the switch S is closed at t = 4 s and load 3 as
the largest load of the study microgrid is energized. Figure 8
shows the output current and h for DER4. h increases to
0.049 pu but does not exceed the threshold ξ . Thus, the pro-
posed fault detection strategy does not mal-operate during a
load switching event.
Electrical Engineering
Fig. 12 Output current
waveforms of all DERs
equipped with modified HRFL
strategy during an a–b–c–g fault
Fig. 13 Current flowing through
all CBs of the study microgrid
equipped with modified HRFL
strategy during an a–b–c–g fault
5.2 Protection coordination performance
5.2.1 Conventional HRFL strategy
As mentioned in Sect. 2.3, the currents of EC-DERs are lim-
ited at i th by HRFL strategy regardless of their distances to
the fault point. Figure 9 shows the output current of all DERs
in the case of a symmetrical fault at line 1. The currents of
VSCs are properly limited at three times their rated currents
during the fault condition. Figure 10 shows the current flow-
ing through CBs of the study network in this scenario in per
unit; all CB currents are normalized using the Sbase = 40 kVA
and Vbase = 400 V. When the fault occurs at t = 4 s, the
CB1 current increases to 3.27 pu peak (122.2 A RMS) that
is greater than other CBs currents. According to the charac-
teristic curve of the associated relay shown in Fig. 11a, this
relay operates at t = 4.271 s. When CB1 is opened, it is
expected that CB2 operates to isolate the faulty section. To
this end, the current flowing through CB2 should be greater
than other CBs currents. However, as shown in Fig. 10, the
current flowing through CB7 and CB8 is greater than CB2
current. Figure 11b shows that the OCR associated with CB7
and CB8 operates 0.196 s after operation of CB1 associated
relay while this time delay for OCR associated with CB2 is
0.233 s. Thus, CB7 and CB8 are opened and the faulty sec-
tion is not isolated. It verifies that the conventional HRFL
strategy does not preserve the protection coordination.
5.2.2 Modified HRFL strategy
To verify the effectiveness of the proposed protection strat-
egy, all EC-DERs of the study microgrid are equipped with
the modified HRFL strategy. Figure 12 shows the output cur-
rent of all DERs during a simulated symmetrical fault in
line 1. The limiting level of DER current is different after the
opening of CB1; the current of DER2 as the closet source to
the fault point is limited at 3 pu while DER4 as the farthest
source to the fault point is limited at 2.5 pu. As shown in
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(a) (b)
Fig. 14 Characteristic curve of OCRs of study microgrid equipped with modified HRFL strategy during an a–b–c–g fault. a Characteristic curve
of OCR associated with CB1 during fault and b Characteristic curve of OCRs associated with CB2, CB7, and CB8 after opening of CB1

Fig. 15 Output current

waveforms of all DERs
equipped with modified HRFL
strategy during an a–b fault

Fig. 13, first, CB1 is opened because its current is greater
than other CBs currents. Based on the characteristic curve of
Fig. 14a, the associated OCR of CB1 operates at t = 4.291 s.
When CB1 is opened, the current flowing through CB2 is
greater than other CBs currents and its associated OCR oper-
ates 0.278 s after the opening of CB1, as shown in Fig. 14b.
Consequently, the proposed protection strategy preserves the
protection coordination among OCRs of the study microgrid.
The objective of the next scenario is investigating the per-
formance of the proposed protection strategy in the case of

123
Electrical Engineering
Fig. 16 Current flowing through
all CBs of the study microgrid
equipped with modified HRFL
strategy during an a–b fault
(a)
Fig. 17 Characteristic curve of OCRs of study microgrid equipped with modified HRFL strategy during an a–b fault. a Characteristic curve of
OCR associated with CB1 during fault and b Characteristic curve of OCRs associated with CB2, CB7, and CB8 after opening of CB1
asymmetrical faults. To this end, a line-to-line fault is sim-
ulated at line 1. Figure 15 shows the output current of all
EC-DERs. The proposed strategy adaptively determines the
limiting level of the injected current of DERs based on their
distances to the fault point. As shown in Fig. 16, the greatest
current passes through CB1 and its associated OCR operates
at t = 4.303 s based on characteristic curve of Fig. 17a.
When CB1 is opened and configuration of the study micro-
grid changes to radial, the greatest current passes through
CB2 and its associated OCR operates at t = 4.586 s, as
shown in Fig. 17b.
(b)
6 Conclusion
The increased reliability and reduced greenhouse gases
emission have led to increasing attention to the EC-DERs
interfaced looped microgrids. The motivation of this paper
was to develop an effective protection strategy for this type
of microgrids in the islanded mode of operation. To address
the low fault detection sensitivity of conventional overcurrent
relays, the proposed scheme quantifies the overall severity of
the fault condition as the fault detection criterion. The fault
detection algorithm only requires the output current signal
of DER and can distinguish a fault condition from a load
switching event. The problem of protection miscoordination
123

of available overcurrent relays with the same characteris-
tics is addressed using the proposed protection coordination
strategy that is implemented in the DER control system. By
modifying the limiting level of HRFL strategy, the injected
current of each DER is adaptively changed proportional to
its distance to the fault point. It results in the current of
relays closer to the fault point is greater than that of other
relays and consequently, the commercially available OCRs
can coordinately operate. The developed coordination strat-
egy does not require the physical communication link and
additional devices. Simulation results obtained from several
case studies verify the effectiveness of the proposed pro-
tection scheme. Developing a thresholdless fault detection
algorithm and modifying other sections of VSC control sys-
tem such as droop control and virtual impedance loop for
coordination preservation can be considered as future works.
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