Abstract
A directional overcurrent relay is commonly used to protect the power distribution networks of a distributed system. The selection of the appropriate settings for the relays is an important component of the protection strategies used to isolate the faulty parts of the system. The rapid growth of distributed generation (DG) systems present new challenges to these protection schemes. The effect of solar photovoltaic power plants on relay coordination is studied initially in this research work. A protection strategy was formulated to guarantee that the increased penetration of solar photovoltaic (PV) plants does not affect the relay coordination time. This paper addresses these issues associated with a high penetration of DG through the use of a hybrid protection scheme. The protection strategy is divided into two parts. The first part is based on an optimal fault current limiter value estimated with respect to constraints and the optimal time multiplier setting, and then the coordination time interval is estimated with respect to constraint in Part II. The results of these analyses show that a hybrid protection scheme can effectively handle the complexity of distributed generation (DG) and dynamic relay coordination problems. In this research, three optimization algorithms have been used for calculating the estimated value of impedance fault current limiter (Zfcl) and time multiplier setting (TMS). The response time of hybrid protection schemes is very important. If the computational time of their proposed algorithms is less than their actual computational time, then their response time to address the issue is also less. The performance in all algorithms was identified to arrive at a conclusion that the grey wolf optimized algorithm (GWO) algorithm can substantially reduce the computational time needed to implement hybrid protection algorithms. The GWO algorithm takes a computational time of 0.946 s, achieving its feasible solution in less than 1 s.