IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 9, NO.

4, JULY 2018 3917

A Superimposed Current Based Unit Protection Scheme for DC Microgrid

Rabindra Mohanty , Student Member, IEEE, and Ashok Kumar Pradhan , Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—With enhanced processing capacity and

communication infrastructure available in smart grid platform,
unit protection scheme is a promising technique. High resistance
fault is a problem with current differential and current direction
based unit protection solutions. In this letter, a protection scheme
capable of fast fault detection and reliable selectivity for DC
microgrid is proposed. The method uses superimposed currents
of both ends of a line segment presented on i-plane during
fault to derive protection decision. Using PSCAD/EMTDC
simulations, performance of the proposed method is evaluated,
compared and found to be accurate.
Index Terms—DC microgrid, fault analysis, unit protection,
communication.

I. I NTRODUCTION
ODAY, DC microgrid is a realistic approach with major-
T ity of electronic loads consuming DC power and avail-
ability of DC sources like photovoltaic (PV) array, fuel cell
and storage devices [1], [2]. DC main and feeders reduce the
number of conversion stages compared to AC and can save
significant energy loss [1]. For a DC microgrid, one of the
important challenges is the lack of effective protection solu-
tion [3]. Detection and clearance of DC fault are difficult due
to the presence of power electronic converters, absence of zero
crossing and associated DC circuit breakers [2]. Further, the
relatively small resistance and inductance in cables, their lim-
ited impact on DC faults, and the sensitivity of converters to
faults make the protection selectivity difficult [3].
Sufficient sensors and communication infrastructure within
a DC microgrid provide an opportunity for unit protection.
Current differential scheme using magnitude of differential
current is proposed in [4]. High resistance fault that results low
magnitude fault current is an issue in such approach. In [3], a
fast and selective protection scheme based on direction of cur-
rent information from both ends is proposed for DC network.
Such a method has also limitation in identifying direction of
fault during high resistance fault as prefault current may be
more than fault component of current.
In this letter, a protection scheme for DC microgrid based
on superimposed fault currents of both ends of a line segment
Manuscript received January 3, 2018; revised April 3, 2018; accepted
May 4, 2018. Date of publication May 11, 2018; date of current version
June 19, 2018. This work was supported by the Department of Science
and Technology, Govt. of India, New Delhi, India, a joint Indo-U.K. project
(29-09-2014) under Grant DST/RCUK/SEGES/2012/09(G). Paper no. PESL-
00002-2018. (Corresponding author: Rabindra Mohanty.)
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian
Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721302, India (e-mail:
rabindramohanty@ee.iitkgp.ernet.in; akpradhan@ee.iitkgp.ernet.in).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TSG.2018.2835645
1949-3053 c 2018 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
Fig. 1. Single line diagram of the DC microgrid.
is proposed. Analysis reveals that the superimposed currents
of both ends correctly discriminate internal and external faults
of a line in a DC microgrid. Performance of the proposed
method is tested for high resistance fault using simulated data
through PSCAD/EMTDC.
II. P ROPOSED P ROTECTION S CHEME
The DC microgrid of Fig. 1 is considered. The microgrid
is divided into different protection segments. An intelligent
electronic device (IED) is installed for each segment to derive
protection decision using currents of both ends.
In a DC system, any disturbance such as fault, load change
or a switching phenomenon causes high rate of change of
current [5]. To detect such a disturbance and to initiate the
main algorithm the change in current information over a
period of time is employed using local current data. For this,
the disturbance index (g) is calculated from the following
relation
⎛ ⎞
1 ⎝
N
g= |ij+1 − ij |⎠ (1)
Nt
j=1
where ij corresponds to sample value of current and N = 5.
For 4kHz sampling, the threshold ξ = 4000A/s (where t
is sampling interval and change of current over the period of
Nt is 5A). When g exceeds ξ , the algorithm triggers the
main algorithm where the protection decision is derived. This
provides high security in protection decision.

Authorized licensed use limited to: INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY KANPUR. Downloaded on December 27,2022 at 10:06:10 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 3918 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SMART GRID, VOL. 9, NO. 4, JULY 2018

Fig. 2. Internal fault case in the DC microgrid.

In state-1 fault analysis [6], considering switches being

blocked and a small fault loop resistance, the current dur-
ing fault at F1 will be resultant of current fed by source and
equivalent capacitance in the fault loop.
 R

F1 Vdc0 − L1 t Vdc0 −α1 t
i1 (t) = 1−e 1 + e sin(ω1 t + φ) (2)
R1 Z01

R1 2
where α1 = R1 /2L1 , ω1 = L1 Cd − ( 2L1 ) and ω0 =
1
Fig. 3. i2 vs. i1 in four-quadrant.

α12 + ω12 . Z01 is the surge impedance of cable up to fault

point represented by Z01 = CL1d . In this case, the superim-
source or capacitance at downstream) where power flow is uni-
posed current at bus 1 for fault in line segment 1-2 of Fig. 2, directional, the current seen at downstream end (iF2 1 ) is zero for
i1 is obtained as an internal fault with Rf = 0. From (6), the superimposed cur-
pre
i1 (t) = iF1 1 (t) − i1 (3) rent (i2 ) is positive and equal to prefault current. Further, for
pre
radial network with prefault current zero and with an internal
where i1 = VRdc0
eq
and Req = Rline + Rload . It is clear from (3) fault, i1 is positive and i2 is zero. For this case, the coor-
that i1 is positive during an internal fault. In a similar way dinate on i-plane is on positive side of x-axis (the boundary
at bus 2, of first and fourth quadrants). However, there is no other situa-
 R2
 tion where i1 is positive and i2 is zero for external fault or
Vdc0 t Vdc0 −α2 t
iF2 1 (t) = 1 − e L2 + e sin(ω2 t + φ) (4) high resistance internal fault. Therefore, it confirms an inter-
R2 Z0 2
nal fault. The i-plane with its four quadrants are shown in
and as convention on direction of currents as shown in the Fig. 3.
Fig. 2,
pre pre
i2 = −i1 (5)
III. S IMULATION R ESULTS
R2 2
where α2 = R2 /2L2 , ω2 = L21Cd − ( 2L ) , ω0 = α22 + ω22
2 A pole-to-ground internal fault (F1 ) with a fault resistance
and Z02 is the surge impedance
of cable up to fault point and
of 2 is simulated at 0.5s in the middle of the line seg-
is represented as Z02 = CL2d . Further, from Fig. 4 it is clear ment 1-2 (ref Fig. 2). The currents seen by the sensors at
pre
that for the internal fault iF2 and i2 are in opposition, thus bus 1 and 2 are shown in Fig. 4a and Fig. 4b respectively.
pre The superimposed currents of both ends (i1 and i2 ) are
i2 (t) = iF2 1 (t) − i2 (6)
found to be positive. Similarly, external faults F2 and F3 as in
Thus, i2 is also positive during an internal fault case. Fig. 2 with a fault resistance of 3 are created. The trajecto-
In case of an external fault F2 , the current seen at bus 1 is, ries of current changes during F1 , F2 and F3 faults are found
 R
 in first, fourth and second-quadrant respectively as shown
Vdc0 − eq t Vdc0 −α1 t
iF1 2 (t) = 1 − e Leq + e sin(ω1 t + φ) (7) in Fig. 5a.
Req Zeq

R
where α1 = Req /2Leq , ω1 = Le qC 1
− ( 2Leqeq )2 and ω0 =
deq A. Comparative Assessment
α12 + ω12 . Req , Leq and Cdeq are the equivalent resistance, The operating current in the differential technique goes

Leq below the threshold for fault resistance more than 5
inductance and capacitance up to the fault F2 and Zeq = Cdeq .
(considered as high in DC microgrid [1], [6]), as evident from
In this case, iF2 2 = −iF1 2 . The superimposed currents at both
Fig. 6a. Similarly, the direction of current has not changed dur-
ends of the line segment during the external fault F2 are,
ing the high resistance internal fault as shown in Fig. 6b and
pre
i1 (t) = iF1 2 (t) − i1 the fault cannot be identified correctly. Performance of the pro-
pre posed method is evaluated for the cases and the superimposed
i2 (t) = −iF1 2 (t) − (−i1 ) (8)
current trajectories are plotted in Fig. 5b. All the trajectories
It is clear that for external fault (F2 ) case, the sign of i1 is settle in first quadrant in i-plane and the method identifies
positive and negative for i2 . In case of radial systems (no the internal faults correctly.

Authorized licensed use limited to: INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY KANPUR. Downloaded on December 27,2022 at 10:06:10 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 MOHANTY AND PRADHAN: SUPERIMPOSED CURRENT BASED UNIT PROTECTION SCHEME FOR DC MICROGRID 3919

(a) (b)

Fig. 4. Current response during an internal fault (a) sensor at bus 1 (b) sensor at bus 2.

(a) (b)

Fig. 5. Performance of proposed method in i-plane during (a) internal and external faults (b) high resistance internal fault.

(a) (b)

Fig. 6. High resistance internal fault (a) current difference (b) direction of currents at both ends.

IV. C ONCLUSION
This letter proposes a unit protection scheme for DC micro-
grid using superimposed fault currents from both ends of a
line segment. The method is able to distinguish internal and
external faults correctly using corresponding coordinates of
superimposed currents in the i-plane. It is found that super-
imposed current approach provides improved performance in
DC microgrid protection compared to current differential and
current direction based unit protection schemes.
R EFERENCES
[1] J.-D. Park, J. Candelaria, L. Ma, and K. Dunn, “DC ring-bus microgrid
fault protection and identification of fault location,” IEEE Trans. Power
Del., vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 2574–2584, Oct. 2013.
[2] S. Dhar, R. K. Patnaik, and P. K. Dash, “Fault detection and
location of photovoltaic based DC microgrid using differential
protection strategy,” IEEE Trans. Smart Grid, to be published,
doi: 10.1109/TSG.2017.2654267.
[3] A. A. S. Emhemed, K. Fong, S. Fletcher, and G. M. Burt, “Validation
of fast and selective protection scheme for an LVDC distribution
network,” IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 1432–1440,
Jun. 2017.
[4] S. D. A. Fletcher, P. J. Norman, K. Fong, S. J. Galloway, and
G. M. Burt, “High-speed differential protection for smart DC distribu-
tion systems,” IEEE Trans. Smart Grid, vol. 5, no. 5, pp. 2610–2617,
Sep. 2014.
[5] A. Meghwani, S. C. Srivastava, and S. Chakrabarti, “A non-unit pro-
tection scheme for DC microgrid based on local measurements,”
IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 172–181,
Feb. 2017.
[6] R. Mohanty and A. K. Pradhan, “Protection of smart DC microgrid with
ring configuration using parameter estimation approach,” IEEE Trans.
Smart Grid, to be published, doi: 10.1109/TSG.2017.2708743.

Authorized licensed use limited to: INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY KANPUR. Downloaded on December 27,2022 at 10:06:10 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.