DC Short Circuit Fault Analysis and Protection of Ring Type DC Microgrid
DC Short Circuit Fault Analysis and Protection of Ring Type DC Microgrid
DC Short Circuit Fault Analysis and Protection of Ring Type DC Microgrid
Abstract—DC fault location and protection is the key problem occurs, power will be released to the point of failure through
to be solved of DC microgrid in spite of the fact that it has the anti parallel diode of VSC(Voltage Source Converter,
become the ideal networking mode of distributed generation due VSC) which results in over-current and seriously harms the
to its obvious advantages. In this paper, a ring-type wind turbine- safe operation of the system. In literature [5], the fault
based DC microgrid is taken as the object of study and the protection is realized by using AC circuit breaker and DC fast
transient characteristics of VSC as well as the system under DC switch in a coordination mode. However, the response of AC
line fault are analyzed based on which the protection scheme of circuit breaker is not fast enough to remove the fault so that
current differential protection as the main protection and under- the power electronic devices may be damaged in a very short
voltage protection as the backup one is proposed. In this method,
time. Park Jae-Do proposed a non-iterative fault location
the power supply security of the DC microgrid system is
guaranteed by detecting the input and output currents of the DC
technology based on probing power, but it is required to install
transmission lines through which the corresponding differential a complex detection power unit [6].
currents can be calculated to locate and isolate the fault lines. DC fault is divided into short circuit fault, ground fault,
Simulations are conducted on MATLAB/Simulink and the results disconnection fault and so on [6-8]. The characteristics of DC
show that the protection system can response rapidly to the line bipolar short-circuit fault and its protection strategy is the
differential current value under short circuit fault, so as to focus of this paper. The bipolar short-circuit fault is generally
realize the DC short circuit fault protection of DC microgrid
due to external mechanical stress and is seen as a permanent
system.
fault which needs to be quickly and accurately cut to avoid the
Keywords—DC microgrid; ring topology; bipolar short circuit; paralysis of the whole DC network [9]. Therefore, in order to
fault analysis; current differential protection ensure the safely and stably operation of the DC microgrid in
fault condition, it is urgent to study the fast fault location and
isolation scheme. Compared with AC microgrid, the research
I. INTRODUCTION on the protection of DC microgrid is still in the primary stage.
In recent years, distributed energy has received more and In the design of the protection system of DC microgrid,
more attention with the continuously increasing of electricity experience can be drawn from AC transmission and flexible
consumption in load-intensive areas and the rapid growth of HVDC transmission system.
DC load. At the same time, AC power distribution network is
In this paper, the ring type wind turbine-based DC
faced with many challenges such as the access of distributed
microgrid is taken as the research object and a novel bipolar
new energy, load diversification, power quality requirements
short-circuit fault protection scheme of the DC transmission
and so on [1]. With the strong advantages in the reduction of
line is proposed. Firstly, transient characteristics of DC
converter number, the improvement of energy conversion
microgrid system during short-circuit fault are analyzed.
efficiency and transport capacity as well as easy access to new
Secondly, the protection scheme is proposed in which current
energy, the DC power distribution has a broad development
differential protection is utilized as the main protection and
prospects. The low voltage DC microgrid, which is established
under voltage protection as the reserve one. Finally, to verify
through connection of the micro-source, the storage unit, the
the effectiveness of the proposed protection scheme, model of
load and the AC grid by DC transmission line, has become a
ring topology wind power DC microgrid is established based
new trend of DC distribution network due to its flexibility and
on MATLAB/ Simulink and simulations are conducted under
stability [2].
short circuit fault.
At present, the research of DC microgrid mainly focuses
on the control strategy during stable operation [3-4]. However, II. CHARACTERISTICS OF DC BIPOLAR SHORT-CIRCUIT FAULT
to ensure the safe and stable operation of DC microgrid,
reliable DC fault protection strategy is indispensable. In DC A. DC fault characteristics of VSC
microgrid, there are more power electronic converters than AC
network through which micro power supply and load as well When the bipolar short-circuit fault of the transmission
as the AC grid are connected to DC network. When DC fault line occurs in the DC microgrid, DC side capacitor discharges
rapidly through the point of failure and the current of the AC
Project Supported by National 863 Program (2015AA050101) and the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2014ZZD11).
π −γ
t1 = t0 + (4)
Fig. 1. Equivalent circuit of VSC under DC cable short circuit fault. ω
π −γ
I 0ω0 −δ ( )
iL (t1 ) = − e ω sin(π − γ − β ) +
ω
π −γ
(5)
V0 −δ ( )
e ω sin γ
ωL
In general, when metal short circuit happens in DC
1
transmission line( ( R ) 2 << ),it can be considered that
2L LC
ω0=ω. In this condition, the simplified short circuit current can
be expressed as follows.
C
iL = e −δ t (V0 sin ω t + I 0 cos ω t ) (6)
L
Fig.2. Equivalent circuit of VSC and its DC side during short circuit.
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iVSC = iVD1 + iVD2 + iVD3 = iga,( >0) + igb,( >0) + igc,( >0) (14)
−(
R
) t1 C 2
iL (t1 ) = e 2L
V0 + I 0 2 sin(π − γ + θ ) (11) From the analysis above, it can be concluded that the time
L when the voltage of DC capacitor reduces to zero and the
oscillating current flows through the continued diodes is the
It should be pointed out that the current flowing through most dangerous moment for the whole system. The protection
the diode is not totally the current of the inductor. This is scheme must be designed to be fast enough to ensure that the
because with the discharging of DC capacitor, the AC system fault is removed before the diode continued flow phase to
can provide electric current through the diode to the DC avoid damage of the diodes and the converter.
network when the DC voltage drops to a certain low value.
Therefore, the current flowing through the diode should be the B. The fault characteristics of DC short circuit ring DC
sum of the inductance current and that of the AC system. With microgrid
the attenuation of the line inductance current and the
increasing of the AC current, the capacitor starts charging and For AC system, the AC voltage and current are changing
the DC voltage increases gradually. periodically with large change rates. Moreover, the current
2016 IEEE 8th International Power Electronics and Motion Control Conference (IPEMC-ECCE Asia)
source converter in AC system adopts high inductance for microgrid is the rapid change of current, including its
filtering so that the fault current rises slowly. Compared to AC amplitude and direction. With respect to AC faults, DC fault
network, low voltage DC microgrid is a small inertia system characteristics are more simple and easy to detect. However,
with a large number of voltage source converters connecting compared to AC network, DC microgrid requires more
the distributed power and load. The system can ensure the quickly and more accurate fault diagnosis, location and
power balance in the network by controlling the DC voltage. isolation method. Due to the similar voltage or current
During stable operation, large mutation of the DC voltage characteristics on each line of ring type DC microgrid under
amplitude does not occur. However, the DC voltage will short-circuit fault, the DC quick break protection based on the
quickly decrease during short circuit fault with rapidly amplitude of the current, the overcurrent protection or the
changing of the DC current. current increment protection can not accurately distinguish the
fault line so that cannot be applied to ring type DC microgrid.
For the ring topology DC microgrid, when bipolar short- In this paper, a current differential protection method is
circuit fault occurs on DC line, DC voltage and current of proposed which is based on the current amplitude as well as
other units will also be affected. The power released to the the directional characteristics and is utilized as the main
point of failure is not only from the units being connected by protection.
the fault line, but also from other units. In addition, the
difference of fault voltage or current characteristic among the Longitudinal current differential protection can be fast and
units is not obvious. Fig. 3 shows the current direction reliable in distinguishing the internal fault of certain line and
schematic of four-end ring type wind power DC microgrid the external fault, with absolute selectivity of internal short-
system under bipolar short-circuit fault of DC line. It can be circuit of transmission line and is widely used in the protection
seen from this figure that the system is composed of wind of AC transmission line [10]. As the transmission line of DC
power unit, storage unit, AC power grid and load with the microgrid is short and the channel transmission time is limited
stable state values of active power marked on it. Before the so that the synchronous problem of the two ends of DC line
fault occurs, the power balance of the microgrid is guaranteed has little effect on the performance of the longitudinal
by the grid-side converter through power injection. In differential protection. Except that the currents at both ends of
addition, the directions of the front and end currents both transmission line during the period of power adjustment do not
before and after the fault on each transmission line are drawn match, the currents at both ends are stable DC components
from which it can be seen that currents flow to the point of under normal condition [11]. Moreover, in DC microgrid, due
failure from not only both ends of the fault line but also from to the short line, small distribution capacitive current as well
other units through corresponding transmission lines after the as the DC voltage dividers and current dividers used for
short circuit fault occurs on line L13. Similarly, the current voltage and current sampling, its protective performance is not
directions can be analyzed when faults occur on transmission affected by the current transformer saturation, system
lines L12, L24 and L34. As the voltage source converter of oscillation and line distributed capacitance effect, thus higher
DC network utilizes large capacitor filter, the fault current reliability of protection is achieved.
rises rapidly in each side and may cause serious damage to the
line and converters in a short time, which requires a quick and According to the magnitude and direction characteristics of
accurate protection scheme to identify and isolate the fault the fault current, longitudinal current differential protection is
line. applied to protect the DC line of microgrid under short-circuit
fault. As is shown in Fig. 4, the operating principle of current
differential protection for the DC microgrid system
III. PROTECTION DESIGN OF DC MICROGRID transmission line is as follows. Provided that the positive
According to the analysis above, the most direct current direction is from the bus to the dc transmission line
manifestation of bipolar fault of DC line in ring type DC being protected. The input and output current vectors of the
two ends of dc transmission lines are sampled and added with
the absolute value of the summation compared with the setting
value to decide which line is under short-circuit fault. Then
control signals are sent from the protection control module to
circuit breakers on both ends of the fault line to open circuit
breakers and remove the line. At the same time, diode Dex of
additional absorbing circuit conducts to provide continued
flow branch for short-circuit current which would be absorbed
by the resistance Rex to reduce the influence of fault current on
line stress.
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Fig. 10. DC voltage and current of G-VSCunder protection.
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V. CONCLUSIONS
The transient characteristics of ring type DC microgird
system under DC line fault are analyzed based on which the
protection scheme of current differential protection as the
main protection and under-voltage protection as backup
protection is proposed. Simulation verifications are conducted
of the DC microgird under fault conditions with and without
the proposed protection scheme respectively. As the circuit
parameters (capacitance, inductance, etc.) exert an important
influence on the peak value of fault current and the flow time
of diode, the transient analysis of the bipolar circuit fault
provides theoretical basis for the main parameters design,
system testing and performance evaluation of the DC
microgird. For the short-circuit fault of low voltage wind
power DC microgird, the current differential protection
strategy only needs to detect the differential current of the DC
transmission lines to quickly and accurately locate and isolate
the fault line. In this way, damages of the line and electronic
device can be avoided and the system reliability as well as the
power supply quality can also be improved.