RESEARCH PROJECT PROPOSAL

Name of the student: I.D.S Sanchala

Index No: 159323 K
Program of study: Electrical Engineering
Telephone number: 0785178534/0712002845
E-mail address:sanchalascg@gmail.com
Requested Supervisor/s: Dr. K.T.M. Udayanga Hemapala, Dr. LNW Arachchige, Dr. W. D. Asanka S.
Rodrigo

Project title: Investigating the Impacts of the High penetration of the Residential
PV Systems for the distribution level protection system and proposing optimum
adaptive protection scheme.

Introduction
The conventional means of electric energy production has been recently considered to be replaced by
renewable resources due to the increasing concerns of environmental degradation, depletion of fossil
fuels, increasing fossil fuel prices, attempts to minimize distribution losses and enhance the operation
reliability etc. [1]
By increasing the harnessing of the Solar Energy has become appropriate solution to all above
mentioned scenarios. Currently the Sri Lankan government is also promoting the rooftop solar PVs
by introducing new tariff systems also. So it can be expected that there will be a high penetration of
residential solar PV to the system in the coming years. From this research it is intended to identify the
actual impact from solar PV connections to the protection functions using forecasted data. A detailed
simulation will be done for a feeder of which is forecasted with heavy solar PV penetration and low
load connection and identify the impact to the protection function operations and coordination due to
bidirectional power flows, fault current level variation, harmonics injected from inverters etc. Then
considering the entire scenario suitable adaptive protection scheme will be suggested with the over
current and earth fault functions. Accurate operation of the suggested protection scheme will be
verified with the simulation.
Problem statement/justification
With the heavy penetration of Solar PV grid protection and operations have to overcome lot of
protection and controlling challengers. So it is required to develop the protection system to operate
accurately even many intermittent solar PV connected at lightly loaded conditions. Depending on
fault location with respect to the distributed solar generation connected in the network the current
seen by the protective device may vary [3]. So the protection settings need to b modified according to
the network configuration. Yet due the intermittency of the distributed solar PV the fault current may
have significant variations which have significant impact over the protection equipment operations. In
order to have more reliable power supply for the urban solar PV connected feeders it is required to
have accurately operating adaptive protection scheme. From this research a case study will be done
and identify the most suitable adaptive protection scheme.
Objectives of the study
The main objective of this research project is to identify the impact to the protection system to the
distribution system. For the case study distribution level feeder will be selected with highly
residential solar penetration. Impact to the protection operations and coordination, from the districted
solar PV will be identified. Based on the impact appropriate adoptive protection system will be
suggested.

Investigate and select a suitable distribution feeder with high solar penetration for the analysis
and collect related data.

Model the selected feeder using most suitable software(PSCAD/ EMTDC) or MATLAB-
Simulink

Identify the probable protection issues such as reverse power flow, variation of the fault
current levels, protection equipment discrimination, sympathetic tripping.[2][4]

Identify the optimum adaptive protection over current and earth fault functions to obtain more
accurate protection function operation.

Methodology
Selecting most suitable feeder for the case study and collecting the required forecasted solar
penetration level data.
Modeling and Simulation of the behavior of the solar PV and inverters in MATLAB-
Simulink/ (or PSCAD/ EMTDC).
Creating different types of faults and identify the impact and mal operations of the existing
protection systems.
Develop mathematical model and algorithms for Adaptive combined Protection scheme of
over current, earth fault and voltage protections for particular simulation model using
appropriate software environment.
Accuracy of the Model and protection model will be verified by comparing the fault clearing
time of conventional and adaptive protection scheme.

Results and Dissemination

New adaptive protection scheme for the distribution level feeders with high solar penetration
will be suggested.

Time frame
 Activity Jun Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Au Sep Oct Nov Dec
1 Literature Survey
2. Modeling and
simulating
distributed Solar
PV
3. Developing
protection relay
functional modules
in Software
4. Simulating all 10
types of faults and
verify the accuracy
of the model
5. Finalizing the
results
6. Writing the Report

Resource requirements

MATLAB SIMULINK, PSCAD, E tab simulation software installed personal computers.

Access to the Power system, and other related laboratory.

References
1. Ma, J.; Mi, C.; Wang, T.; Wu, J.; Wang, Z.P. An Adaptive Protection Scheme for Distributed Systems withDistributed
Generation. In Proceedings of the IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting, San Diego,CA, USA, 2429 July
2011.
2. Mesut E. Baran, Fellow, IEEE, Hossein Hooshyar, Student Member, IEEE, Zhan Shen, Student Member, IEEE,and Alex
Huang, Fellow, IEEE, Accommodating High PV Penetration on Distribution Feeders, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON
SMART GRID, VOL. 3, NO. 2, JUNE 2012
2) Puladasu sudhakar-Research scholar at JNTUA/ JNTUniversity, India, Dr.Sushama Malaji-Professor and supervisor at
JNTUH/ JNTUniversity, India, Dr.B.Sarvesh-Senior Professor and co-supervisor at JNTUA/ JNTUniversity, India,
Protection issues of Power Systems with PV Systems Based Distributed Generation, IOSR Journal of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering (IOSR-JEEE) e-ISSN: 2278-1676,p-ISSN: 2320-3331, Volume 9, Issue 3 Ver. V (May Jun.
2014), PP 18-27 www.iosrjournals.org
3) Mesut E. Baran, Fellow, IEEE, Hossein Hooshyar, Student Member, IEEE, Zhan Shen, Student Member, IEEE,and
Alex Huang, Fellow, IEEE, Accommodating High PV Penetration on Distribution Feeders, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON
SMART GRID, VOL. 3, NO. 2, JUNE 2012
4) Er. Mamatha Sandhu *, Dr.Tilak Thakur, Issues, Challenges, Causes, Impacts and Utilization of Renewable Energy
Sources - Grid Integration, Mamatha Sandhu et al Int. Journal of Engineering Research and Applications
www.ijera.com ISSN : 2248-9622, Vol. 4, Issue 3( Version 1), March 2014, pp.636-643