Energy and Power Engineering, 2013, 5, 584-588
doi:10.4236/epe.2013.54B112 Published Online July 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/epe)
Study of Coordination between Protective Devices
Comprising Distributed Generation in Distribution System
Sujarit Muangchareon1, Atthapol Ngao pi tak ku l 1, S ul e e Bun j on g ji t1, Monthon Leelajindakrairerk1,
Chaichan Pothisarn1, Auttarat Nawikavatan2
1Department o f Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, King Mongkut’s Institute of Tech nology Ladkr abang,
Bangkok, Thailand
2Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, South-East Asia University, Bangkok, Thailand
Received April, 2013
ABSTRACT
This paper proposes to study the coordination of protective devices when 8 MW synchronous generators are intercon-
nected to distribution System of PEA. The coordination between recloser and drop out fuse is investigated in this paper.
The three-phase fault is simulated using digital simulation and electrical network calculation program (DIgSILENT).
The results are shown that the short circuit current from substation is reduced comparing to the distribution system
without DG connected. It causes to protective device coordination inconsistently, so the maintenance will be delayed
more than expected.
Keywords: Coordination; Distributed Generation; Protective device; Renewable Energy
1. Introduction
Nowadays, many countries have been promoting the em-
ploying of renewable energy in order to produce electric-
ity by distributed generation (DG). DG is a kind of natu-
ral energy such as solar energy, wind energy, biomass,
and etc., used in the power industry with different tech-
nologies. Generally, the distribution scheme of Thailand
is a radial system, which the current flows in one direc-
tion. However, with the employment of DG into the dis-
tribution system, there are many issues [1-5] that may
cause the technical impacts to the distribution system.
Electrical power protection is one of problems that is
interested. When DG is connected to distribution system,
it affects the performance of the system and the protec-
tive device that is already installed owing to the change
of level voltage, short-circuit level and direction of pow-
er flow in the system. For this reason, protective device
may cause the malfunction due to the bus impedance of
the system is changed; this will result in change of the
current of each bus.
In the literature for DG, fault analysis and protective
device have been developed to be used in the protection
distribution system [5-12]. The impact of DG on arcing
faults is proposed in [5]. A solution for the short-circuit
calculation in the network with th e DG, which takes into
account the arc resistance existing at the fault location is
presented by R. Ciric et al. [5]. The result shows that the
arc increases the impedance measured by the protection
device, whereas the DG can be increased the fault current,
decreased the arc resistance, and decreasing the impact of
arc on the impedance measured by the protection device.
A combination of Wavelet Transform and S-Transform
[7] has been introduced to detection of islanding event
and PQ disturbances in grid-connected hybrid power
system. The intelligent relay, as introduced in [9], is
viewed as passive islanding protection. This technique
proposed relay setting by using both dependability and
security performance indices; the latter is particularly
important for minimizing nuisance tripping for larger DG
penetration levels. A new passive islanding detection
technique using the rate of change of phase angle differ-
ence (ROCPAD) is proposed by Ankita Samui et al. [12].
The response time of ROCPAD is within one cycle from
the event inception, showing fastness of the proposed
algorithm compared to ROCOF relays and working ef-
fectively in the situations where ROCOF fails.
The goal of this paper is to study the coordination be-
tween recloser and drop out fuse of protective equipment
with the DG installed into the distribution system. The
distribution system under investigations is a part of Pro-
vincial Electricity Authority (PEA). Under this research,
DG data that are connected to the PEA distribution are
used. The simulations are performed using digital simu-
lation and electrical network calculation program (DIg-
SILENT).

S. MUANGCHAREON ET AL. 585
2. Fault Calculation According to IEC
609090
The method used for calculation is based on the intro-
duction of an equivalent voltage source at the short-cir-
cuit location. The equivalent voltage source is the only
active voltage of the system as shown in Figure 1. All
network feeders, synchronous and asynchronous ma-
chines are replaced by their internal impedances.
The current of three-phase short circuit following
IEC60909 can be calculated by equation 1.
IF = V/(Z1 + ZF) (1)
when,
V = voltage
Z1= positive sequence impedance
ZF = fault impedance
3. Power System Simulation using
DIgSILENT
DIgSILENT is a computer aided engineering tool for the
simulation and analysis of power systems. DIgSILENT
powerfactory is employed to simulate behaviour and co-
ordination of protective device when distributed genera-
tion (DG) is connected to 22kV distribution system as
shown in Figure 2. The scheme under investigation is a
part of Thailand’s electricity distribution system. It can
be seen that there are 14 nodes from substation while
synchronous machine (biomass) is distributed generation
that are connected at node 11. The recloser is installed at
node 4, node 5, and node 1 3.
From simulation, the current of the load transformer
which is installed at each node take into account the val-
ue of the minimum and maximum current of protection
device in power system with the correlation between the
magnitude of current in each nodes as shown in Figures
3 and 4, respectively.
4. Coordination between Recloser and Drop
out Fuse Cut out in Distribution System
The objective of this paper is to study the coordination
between recloser at node 4 and drop out fuse at node 12
Figure 1. Equivalent circuit for short circuit current calcu-
lation.
Figure 2. A simple radial system with DG connected at node
11.
12345678910 1112 13 14
0
50
100
150
200
250
Node
Load current (A)
Load currn t ph ase A
Load currn t ph ase A
Load currn t ph ase A
Figure 3. Example of simulated load current for each node in case
of no DG in distribution system.
1 2 3 4 56 7 8 910 11 12 13 14
50
100
150
200
250
Node
Curre nt (A)
Load Current Phase A
Load Current Phase B
Load Current Phase C
Figure 4. Example of simulated load current for each node in case
of 8MW DG connected to the distribution system.
when DG is installed in distribution system. The case of
no DG which is shown in Figure 3, it is seen that, the
recloser is installed at node 4; this position will have the
current of the load transformer installed over 170 A and
the safety factor at 150 percent will make it possible to

S. MUANGCHAREON ET AL.
586
configure the reclo ser in this minimum, which is equal to
350 A. The current of unbalanced load is considered as
25% of the load transformer, which can be configured to
perform with the ground with the value less than 88 A.
of the protective device at node 4 (350 A) as shown in
Table 1 and Figure 6.
12345678910 11 12 13 14
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
Node
Three phase shortcircuit current (A)
Three phase shortcircuit cur rent (A)
From Figure 5, it is seen that, when the three phase
fault occurring at the node 12, the short circuit current of
recloser at node 4 can be read with 619 A. The function
of the protective device as shown in Figure 6, when the
three phase fault occurring at the node 12, the operating
time of protective device at the node 4 is 0.298 second
which faster than the operating time of drop out fuse at
node 12 (0.404 second) because of the short circuit cur-
rent in the node 12 (619 A) high er than the pickup setting Figure 5. Example of s imu lat ed three p has e faul t current s ign als for
each node in case of without DG in distribution system.
Table 1. The operation of protective devices in the electrical distribution system.
Protective device ANSI CODECT Ratio The operation of the device.
50/51
50/51N 600 : 1 Curve=SI (ANSI), Is = 1 xIn, TMS=0.8, INS = 10
Curve=VI (ANSI), Is = 0.3xIn, TMS=1.9, I NS = 10
Over-current relay (Substation)
50/51
50/51N 600 : 1 DT =0.3,Is = 0.5xI n, INS = 10
DT 0.3,Is = 0.15xI n , INS = 10
Over-current relay (DG )
Ø = 350 Curve 1 = 105 Curve 2 = 1 16
Recloser (Node 4) - 1000:1 G = 88 Curve 1 = 111 Curve 2 = 165
- 1000:1 Ø = 140 Curve 1 = 101 Curve 2 = 11 6
G = 35 Curve 1 = 102 Curve 2 = 165
Recloser (Node 5)
- 1000:1 Ø = 140 Curve 1 = 101 Cur ve 2 = 1 1 6
G = 35 Curve 1 = 102 Curve 2 = 165
Recloser (Node 13)
Figure 6. Sequence of phase protection in case of no DG in distribution system and three-phase faults occurring at node 12.

S. MUANGCHAREON ET AL. 587
1 2 34 5 67 8 910 11 12 1314 15
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
5500
6000
node
Three phas e short circuit c urrent (A )
Short ci rcuit current from s ubstat i on
Short ci rcuit current from DG
Figure 7. Example of three phase fault current signals for each node in case of 8 MW DG connected to the distribution system.
In case of 8 MW DG connected to the distribution
system, it can be seen that, when three-phase fault occur-
ring at node 12, the short circuit current have 2 source
that is injected from substation (I1) and DG (I2) as shown
in Figure 2 and Figure 7. For this case, when the three
phase fault occurring at the node 12, the short circuit
current of recloser at node 4 can be read with 441 A
which is the short circuit current from substation (I1) as
shown in Figure 2 and Figure 7 (blue line). It can be
seen that the short circu it curren t fro m substation (44 1 A)
is lower than in case of no DG (619 A) because of DG is
installed in distribution system so DG become the short
circuit current supply in system as shown in Figure 2
and Figure 7 (red line).
The purpose of the recloser’s installation is to clear
temporarily fault from the distribution system. Generally,
the recloser must be operated with fast curve before
melting of drop out fuse in distribution system. For this
case, when node 12 is considered, it can be seen that the
short circuit current (I3) that flows through the drop out
fuse at node 12 is higher than the recloser at node 4 due
that the short circuit current (I3) is generated from the
combination of the substation (I1) and DG (I2) as shown
in Figure 2. This is due to the protective sequence of
protective device in the distribution system, will be mal-
function. From Figure 8, when three-phase fault occur-
ring at node 12, the short circuit current of recloser at
node 4 can be read with 441 A so that fast curve of re-
closer will be open with operating time of 0.509 second,
but the short circuit current of drop out fuse at node 12
can be read with 1203 A and, then cause it to melt with
operating time of 0.103 second. As a result, in this case,
the protection device of the node 4 will be operated
slower than drop out fuse at node 12, so the maintenance
will be delayed more than expected.
5. Conclusions
This paper proposed the effects of coordination protec-
tive device when the distributed generation (DG) is con-
nected to the distribution system. The coordination be-
tween recloser and drop out fuse is investigated in this
paper. In case of no DG, the short circuit current is only
injected from substation but, when the 8 MW DG is
connected to the distribution system, the short circuit
current from substation is reduced compared to the dis-
tribution system without DG connected. In addition,
when node 12 is considered, the short circuit current (I3)
that flows through the drop out fuse at node 12 is gener-
ated from the combination of the substation (I1) and DG
(I2) as shown in Figure 2. This problem may cause the
protective device coordination inconsistently such as the
protection device of the node 4 will be operated slower
than drop out fuse at node 12 so the maintenan ce will be
delayed more than expected. The coordination setting of
protective device should be properly operated coordina-
tion to reduced duration time of maintenance.
6. Acknowledgements
The authors wish to gratefully acknowledge financial
support for this research from the energy policy and
planning office (EPPO), Ministry of Energy, Thailand.
They would like also to thank for the DIgSILENT pre-
sented in this paper which is supported by Provincial
Electricity Authority (PEA).
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