A High Impedance Fault (HIF) in the power distribution systems remains mostly undetected by conventional protection schemes due to low fault currents. Apart from degrading the reliability of power supply to customers, HIF can impose a high cost on the utilities due to technical damages. The nonlinear and asymmetric nature of HIF makes its detection and identification very challenging. HIF signatures are in the form of minute-level distortions in the observable AC sinusoidal voltage and current waveforms but these signatures do not follow a clear pattern. In this paper, we present Advanced Distortion Detection Technique (ADDT), based on waveform analytics to distinguish and detect HIF. In addition, the ADDT analysis provides a fair assessment about the location and severity of HIF for efficient decision-making at the DSO level. ADDT is computationally lightweight and can be implemented in actual relays, hence it is enabled to provide an easy and cost-effective solution to HIF detection issues. ADDT robustness is tested in several simulation cases of interest using the IEEE-34 and IEEE-13 distribution test feeder systems in RTDS power system simulator. The test results successfully demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of ADDT.

An orthogonal vector analysis of windowed dynamical electrical signals with a Kalman filter tracking is proposed in this paper. Based on The Fourier Series Theory, the correlation of the signal coefficient that minimizes the error energy is obtained to extract the sinusoid component of the dynamical electrical signal. Further, The Kalman Filter is applied to track the hidden time-frequency behavior. The proposed algorithm is validated by comparing the response of The Kalman Filter estimation of the naive signal and the approximated one with the discrete Fourier transform. The results suggest that the proposed method is able to improve the Kalman response when treating with signals with non-linear dynamical properties.

In order to test protection performance of future multi-terminal HVDC grids where DC circuit breakers (DC CBs) play an important role, a DC CB model in real time test environment should be developed. It is well known that a DC CB needs to interrupt DC faults very quickly in order to avoid converter damages and to ensure security of supply. The total current interruption time consists of a fault detection time, which is needed for the DC protection to provide a trip command to the DC CB, and a DC CB interruption time. Thus, it is necessary to demonstrate the performance of associated protective devices through real time simulations, before these devices can be implemented and commissioned in practice. This paper presents a detailed modeling of the voltage source converter assisted resonant current DC circuit breaker (VARC DC CB) in real time simulation environment based on RTDS. The proposed model provides sufficient representation of the circuit breaker for system level studies. External current-voltage characteristics of the proposed VARC DC CB models replicate the ones of the device in the real world. The proposed model of the breaker is tested in a simple test circuit including a DC voltage source and a T-scheme HVDC cable. Additionally, a case study has been presented by making use of a protection algorithm in a multi-terminal HVDC grid with frequency dependent parameters of the HVDC cables to show both protection performance and current interruption.

This article proposes a fast and reliable two-level islanding detection method (IDM) for grid-connected photovoltaic system (GCPVS)-based microgrid. In the first level of the proposed IDM, the magnitude of the rate of change of output voltage (ROCOV) is computed. If this variable exceeds a predefined threshold, a disturbance is injected into the duty cycle of DC/DC converter after a given time delay to deviate the system operating point away of its maximum power point (MPP) condition. This leads to a substantial active power output and voltage reduction in an islanded mode. Therefore, the ROCOV and the rate of change of active power output (ROCOP) indices, measured in the second stage, pose great negative sets at the same time in islanding states. However, the variation of at least one of these variables is near-zero in non-islanding switching events. The assessment of the presented algorithm has been conducted under extensive islanding and non-islanding scenarios for a case study system with two PV power plants using hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) simulation tests. The provided results remark precise islanding classification with an eminently small non-detection zone (NDZ) within 510 ms. The presented IDM has the advantages of self-standing thresholds determination, no improper effect on the output power quality, and simple and inexpensive structure. Moreover, the fast MPP restoration of the proposed scheme after islanding identification boosts the chance of seamless reconnection and DG autonomous operation in microgrid.

This paper presents an approach to obtain reduced-order models for power networks involving power electronic converters (PEC) via the frequency-domain balanced realizations (FDBR) technique. PECs play an essential role in power processing and energy conversion in modern electrical networks, such as the interconnection of renewable generators, HVDC links, and active filters. Integration of PECs into dynamic equivalents needs model-order reduction (MOR) in both low- and high-frequency ranges to account for both slow and fast dynamics due to the network and switching natures. The objective of the FDBR technique is to obtain an internally balanced system, i.e., an equally controllable/observable system, that can be reduced according to its dominant dynamics within the limited frequency bandwidths. This allows accounting for specific band-limited phenomena, such as those generated within a power network caused by PECs, which is the focus of this paper. The results show that faster yet accurate simulations are achieved by reduced-order models through FDBR compared to their full-order counterparts.

This paper deals with the investigation of the performance of distance protection in a 400 kV transmission line for a system with high penetration of photovoltaic sources (PV). A grid with a PV plant is designed in RSCAD software environment, which is supported by RTDS. By performing hardware-in-the-loop tests, two commercial relays are investigated in real-time. Firstly, the distance protection function is tested with a synchronous generator to check the response of the studied system and validate correct relay settings. Afterwards, the synchronous generator is replaced by a generic PV plant model. The impact of different fault locations, fault types and fault impedances are studied. Finally, the critical scenarios in the power system are determined for which a relay fails to detect a fault. Many simulations are performed and cases, when a relay unexpected operations, are identified. Relevant solutions to overcome these problems are suggested.

The main goal of the paper is the modeling of the mechanical circuit breaker (MCB) that can replicate the breaker characteristics in real time environment. The proposed MCB with active current injection is modelled for a system level, which provides adequate representation of the circuit breakers for system analysis studies. External current-voltage characteristics of the proposed MCB models replicate the ones of the devices in the real world. It is well known that the DC circuit breaker (DCCB) needs to interrupt DC faults very quickly in order to avoid converter damages. The total current interruption time consists of fault detection time, time needed for the DC protection to provide command to the DCCB, and DCCB arc clearing time. Thus, it is necessary to demonstrate the system performance of associated protective devices through real time simulation, before these devices can be implemented and commissioned in practice. This paper presents a detailed modeling of the mechanical DCCB in real time simulation environment based on RTDS. The performance of the model is verified by the simulations based on PSCAD and meaningful conclusions are drawn.

This study introduces an advanced DC-DC power converter with two main objectives, (i) to achieve a wide range of voltage gain, which means the converter may work over a wide range of input voltage for a fixed desired output voltage and (ii) to achieve a reduced input current ripple. Those features are highly desired in renewable energy applications, for example with photovoltaic panels and fuel cells. The proposed converter was designed in a structure in which the input voltage is composed by the difference of two inductor currents, the currents through inductors are driven with transistors that may have different duty cycle, this allows the current ripple cancellation. In addition, the structure of the converter provides a quadratic type voltage gain, which leads to a wide range of operation voltage. The converter achieves both the wire range of voltage gain and current ripple cancellation, nonetheless, the buck-boost capability is also provided. The input current ripple reduction helps preserve the renewable energy sources since they suffer deterioration when current with considerable ripple is drawn from them. Dynamic and steady-state analysis are performed along with the components sizing. Simulation and experimental results are provided to demonstrate the principle of the proposition.

This paper presents a hybrid methodology to analyze electromagnetic transients in a photovoltaic distributed system. The methodology consists in split the system into two parts: The external zone, where the system is reduced by a dynamic equivalent obtained by the application of Balance Realization (BR) theory and the internal zone, where the system is modeled in detail and solved by a time domain technique. The methodology, that uses a predictor-corrector method to join both zones, does not need a transmission line to interconnect the systems but an element with reactive behavior to deal with the time coupling. In the first zone, the use of BR permits to obtain a new and reduced state-space description of the system that keeps the domain dynamics of the full system. The size of this system can be reduced as much as desired. Nevertheless, the resulting size is proportional to the accuracy. The BR decreases significantly the computational cost to simulate distributed networks. No restrictions are done in the internal zone where all the dynamics elements including the control if desired, can be simulated. The internal zone commonly contains non-linear or power electronic elements.