Protection and control of microgrids using dynamic state estimation

Abstract High penetration of Converter Interfaced Generations (CIGs) presents challenges in both microgrid (μGrid) circuit and other system with CIG resources, such as wind farms and PV plants. Specifically, protection challenges are mainly brought by the insufficient separation between fault and load currents, especially for μGrids in islanded operation, and the short connection length in μGrids. In addition, CIG resources exhibit limited inertia and weak coupling to any rotating machinery, which can result in large transients during disturbances. To address the above challenges, this paper proposes a Dynamic State Estimation (DSE) based algorithm for protection and control of systems with substantial CIG resources such as a μGrid. It requires a high-fidelity dynamic model and time domain (sampled value) measurements. For μGrid circuit protection, the algorithm dependably and securely detects internal faults by checking the consistency between the circuit model and available measurements. For CIG control, the algorithm estimates the frequency at other parts of a μGrid using CIG local information only and then utilizes it to provide supplementary feedback control. Simulation results prove that DSE based protection algorithm detects internal faults faster, ignores external faults and has improved sensitivity towards high impedance faults when compared to conventional protection methods. DSE based CIG control scheme also minimizes output oscillation and transient during system disturbances