Distribution System Protection with Communication Technologies

Mu Wei, Zhe Chen Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Denmark mwe@iet.aau.dk, zch@iet.aau.dk reliability and stability, which means the advanced control and protection is supposed to be based on fast and real time communications. Accordingly the application of modern communication technologies in power industry has become incredibly important. The proper cooperation and combination of the communication system and the power system depend on many aspects, such as related protocols, access technologies, and transmission media, etc. IP-based communication network implemented in power system has been proposed recently. Computer networks and data communication play increasingly important roles in distribution power systems [5], though very little work has been done on the distribution power system communication so far. In this paper an Ethernet- based Local Area Network (LAN) for distributed power system, as an example, is investigated and simulated. Subsequently, by deploying the LAN attribute to a distribution power system, the performance of the distribution power system is investigated. The sections of the paper are presented respectively as follows. Section II introduces the modern power system protection, the relative logical node model according to the IEC61850, and the corresponding communication requirements, and explains the LAN concept applied in a power system. Then the possible communication technologies, in Data Link Layer according to the ISO reference model, are proposed and compared respectively in Section , and Ethernet is chosen in this paper as the Data Link Layer access technique. Then in Section a case is studied by combining the Ethernet-based IED (intelligent electronic devices) LAN with a distribution power system. Finally in Section the conclusion and future work are presented. II. DISTRIBUTION POWER SYSTEM A. Power system protection Short circuits occur in power systems when equipment insulation fails, for example, due to system overvoltages caused by lightning or switching surges, to insulation contamination, or to other mechanical and natural causes. Protection in power system has the criteria on 1) Reliability: Operate dependably when fault conditions occur, even after remaining idle for months or years. 2) Selectivity: Avoid unnecessary, false trips.

Abstract-Due to the communication technologies involvement in the distribution power system, the time-critical protection function may be implemented more accurately, therefore distribution power systems stability, reliability and security could be improved. This paper presents an active distribution power system, including CHPs (Combined Heating and Power) and small scaled WTs (Wind Turbines), as a practical example to examine the possible impacts of communication technologies on the power system. Under some fault scenarios, the power systems responses to the fault are compared between the system with communication technologies and that without communication technologies. At the same time, the previously proposed study method of combining the simulations of communication and power systems is adopted in this study. The performance of a communication network adopted for power system is simulated by OPNET, and then the corresponding power system is studied by EMTDC/PSCAD. Finally the simulation results are analyzed to draw a conclusion.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Recently the modern power system is experiencing dramatic developments and continuous changes due to the energy challenge all over the world. Diverse of renewable energies, like wind power, wave power, solar power, and hydro power, etc. are rapidly evolved and involved in contemporary power systems. The power system consequently tends to be more and more distributed, deregulated, and highly interconnected. Therefore the necessity of study on the active distribution system becomes significant. Although the renewable energy helps relieve the global energy crisis, its inherent inconstancy and unstableness also present great challenges to the power system monitoring, control and protection. Due to the renewable energy involvement, not only the topology of the power system, but also its management has become precedent complicated. In such situation the traditional approach on the control and management may not be applicable to the active distribution power system. Thanks to the communication technologies, the active distribution power system may find an applicable solution to deal with the protection issues. Applications of communication technologies cover a wide range, from Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) [1, 2] system, remote measurement [3, 4], to monitoring, control, and protection, which are critical to the proper operation of power system and to maintain system

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3) Speed: Operate rapidly to minimize fault duration and equipment damage. Any intentional time delays should be precise. 4) Economy: Provide maximum protection at minimum cost. 5) Simplicity: Minimize protection equipment and circuitry. Most of the faults on distribution systems are temporary in nature. Therefore the main requirement of a protective strategy is to deal effectively with temporary faults by providing a means of fast fault recognition, clearing, and reclosing of the circuit after a brief pause to allow an arcing fault to deionize. [6] Regarding the speed attribute of the system protection, some requirements are established. Standard Extra High Voltage (EHV) protective equipment is designed to clear faults within 3 cycles, i.e. 60ms, whereas lower-voltage protective equipment typically operates within 5-20 cycles, i.e. 100-400ms in 50 Hz system. [7] With the advance of power communication technology and infrastructure, the old high-voltage power line carrier systems are replaced by modern communication networks, such as Ethernet and fiber LAN. B. Communication logical node model for power system protection In terms of the communication in power system, IEC 61850 standards defines not only the concepts of logical devices, logical nodes (LN) and data contained in the logical device and nodes, which are all crucial for the description and information exchange for power systems, but also the communications among different logical nodes and logical devices. The logical nodes are the smallest entities decomposed from the application functions. Several logical nodes build a logical device. A logical device is always implemented in one IED (Intelligent Electric Device) [8]. As a protection example, Fig. 1 depicts the relationships among the application function: Protection and logical device, IED, LN XCBR (the Logical Node XCBR represents the common information of a real circuit breaker).

Discussion the communication technologies without addressing the application scope according to the ISO reference model is promiscuous. Thus in this paper the communication technologies are focused on the Second Layer (Data Link Layer) from the point view of the Seven Layered ISO reference model. A. Communication technologies regarding the ISO reference model The ISO reference model [9] provides a framework for the coordination of standard development and to allow existing and evolving standards activities to be set within a common framework. The logical structure of the ISO reference model is made up of seven protocol layers, as shown in Fig. 2. The function of each layer is specified formally as a protocol that defines a set of rules and conventions used by the layer to communicate with a similar peer layer in another system.

Fig. 2. ISO reference 7 layers model.

The upper layers are application oriented and are concerned with the protocols associated that allow two end user application processes to interact with each other, normally through a range of services offered by a local operating system. The three lowest layers are network dependant and are concerned with the protocols associated with a data communication network being used to link two communicating nodes. The possible communication technologies of each layer are specified in Table I. [10]
TABLE I COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES ON SEVEN LAYERS OF ISO REFERENCE MODEL ISO Reference model Application Layer Presentation Layer Session Layer Transport Layer Network Layer Link Layer Technologies Semantic Conversion Encryption, Compression Authentication, Permissions, Session restoration Statistical multiplexing, Virtual circuit, Flow control, Error recovery Connection model, Host addressing, Message forwarding Flow control, Error notification, Frame synchronization, Physical addressing, Collision detection, Quality of service Bit-by-bit or symbol-by-symbol delivery, Modulation, Line coding, Multiplexing, Bit synchronization, Circuit switching

Fig. 1. The relationship between protection and Logical Node.

III.

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN DISTRIBUTION POWER SYSTEM

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In this paper the second layer (Data Link Layer) is focused to investigate the effects of LANs protocols on the power system protection. Therefore the following Data Link Layerbased LAN access techniques: Ethernet is elaborated. B. LANs access technologies: Ethernet Ethernet defines a number of wiring and signaling standards for the Physical Layer of the ISO reference networking model, through the means of network access at the Media Access Control (MAC) /Data Link Layer, and a common addressing format. Ethernet is standardized as IEEE 802.3. The combination of the twisted pair versions of Ethernet for connecting end systems to the network, along with the fiber optic versions for site backbones, is the most widespread wired LAN technology. It supports all popular network and higher-level protocols. Traditional Ethernet supports data transfers at the rate of 10 Megabits per second (Mbps). As the performance needs of LANs have increased, the industry created additional Ethernet specifications for Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet. In this paper the switched Ethernet is selected due to the higher data transmission speed compared with the shared Ethernet. Accordingly the communication nodes are all connected to a switch. [9] C. Structure of the communication network for the power transmission system protection A way of a communication network combined with a power system is displayed in Fig. 3.The IED represents Intelligent Electronics Device, who are the main components collect data from the power system, and also deliver commands to the power system.

EMTDC/PSCAD is a fast, accurate, and easy-to-use power system simulation software for the design and verification of all types of power systems. It is the visual design tool of choice at commercial, industrial, and research organizations worldwide. The studied scenario is selected as bellow. A. Distribution power system scenario The single line of the distribution power system scenario is displayed in Fig. 4. It contains a 9 MW CHP and 3 wind turbines of 600 kW. After the circuit breaker disconnecting the grid at 6 second, the CHP works standalone. Subsequently a three-phase-ground fault occurs at 15 second as shown in Fig. 4. Once the fault happens, the closest (instantaneous) relay is supposed to send trip signal to the circuit breaker and the remote relays also pick up. However in case the instantaneous relay does not work, then the trip signal will be sent by the remote backup relays to clear the fault with some delay. It happens sometimes, but it is critical, especially when the active distribution system is disconnected with the grid, like in this scenario, the active distribution power system may lose the stability, the collapse therewith happens.

Fig. 4. Active distribution power system scenario.

Fig. 3. A structure of combining a communication network and a power system.

In this case, the fault lasts for 150 ms, if the instantaneous protection fails to operate, then the remote circuit breaks should pick up and disconnect the fault line within a preset time limit. The specific time arrangement for the operation of the circuit breakers and the fault are as presented in Fig. 5. Consequently, if the disconnection of the faulted line is delayed according to the remote protection presetting, the stability of the islanded distribution power system maybe in risk. In order to avoid the instability, some protection algorithms are developed to manage this fault protection.

IV.

CASE STUDY

In order to investigate the performance of the distribution power system involved with communication techniques, a novel way of doing the study is introduced. The method is to combine a communication simulation tool: OPNET, with a power system simulation tool: EMTDC/PSCAD. OPNET provides the industrys leading simulator specialized for network research and development. It allows to design and study communication networks, devices, protocols and applications with great flexibility. All the components are modeled in an object-oriented approach.

Fig.5. Fault and CBs time arrangements.

Nevertheless, instead of the algorithms are developed in this paper, the communication techniques are introduced as an alternative solution, which is explained in the C, D and E parts.

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B. Power system simulation results with conventional protection scheme The distribution power system in the given scenario is simulated by the EMTDC/PSCAD. At 6 second, the switch disconnects the grid; thereby the islanded distribution power system experiences a transition of seven seconds, at nearly 13 second the distribution system is recovered and returns stable again, which is as displayed in Fig. 6. The CHP keeps stable operation during the disturbance (the fault occurs at 15 second, cleared at 15.2 second, reclosed successfully at 15.4 second), as illustrated in Fig. 7.
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C. Communication network development As compared with the traditional protection algorithm, in this paper, an Ethernet LAN based communication network exists in parallel with the islanded distribution power system to fulfill the protection function. Thus the remote circuit breakers are under the control of the IED Ethernet LAN. If the instantaneous circuit breaker fails to disconnect the fault line, the remote circuit breakers will operate according to the ETE (End To End) delay of the IED Ethernet LAN. The approach to do this is to firstly configure a communication network by an Ethernet LAN in the secondary side of the primary power system to communicate among different substations. The related protection IEDs are connected via an Ethernet LAN. The topology of the LAN is developed corresponding with the islanded distribution power system as displayed in Fig. 9. This work is fulfilled by the OPNET IT Guru, which provides a Virtual Network Environment that models the behavior of an entire network, including its routers, switches, protocols, servers, and individual applications. The applications are deployed to the respective IEDs and the servers, which is illustrated by taken node IED 1-1 and server 1 as an instance of Client tier and FTP server tier in Fig.10.

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Fig. 7. Rotor speed of CHP after fault.

However, the WTs have undesired behavior in the scenario described previously. This study presents a phenomenon that if the time duration of the pick-up state is around 200ms; the WTs lose their stability, as shown in Fig. 8, although the islanded CHP is still stable. Therefore the traditional protection algorithms have to involve subsequent actions,

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Fig. 9. Hierarchical topology IED Ethernet LAN for distribution power system.

Fig. 12. IED Ethernet LAN ETE delay for distribution power system.

Some of the extracted simulation data are listed in Table II.

TABLE II IED ETHERNET LAN ETE DELAY FOR DISTRIBUTION POWER SYSTEM Simulation Simulation Delay (ms) Delay (ms) Time (hour) Time (hour) 0.24 3.691696 2.40 3.701328 0.48 3.696932 2.64 3.701676 0.72 3.693941 2.88 3.701624 0.96 3.698742 3.12 3.702851 1.2 3.697538 3.36 3.701824 1.44 3.699555 3.60 3.702334 1.68 3.70057 3.84 3.702197 1.92 3.700553 4.08 3.702722 2.16 3.700554 4.32 3.703426

Fig. 10. Application deployment of the IED LAN.

The transferred file size is determined by the IED categories. Suppose a monitoring instrument samples threephase voltages and three-phase currents, and it samples 128 data points per period for each analogue input channel, and each sampling data is represented by 2 bytes. Then there are 6*128*2=1536 bytes transmitted every 20ms, and the data transmission speed is 1536*50=76800 bytes per second [11]. In this case, the size is thereby determined as 76800 bytes as shown in Fig. 11.

E. Power system simulation results with communication technology based protection scheme By introducing the IED Ethernet LAN ETE delay attribute to the distribution power system [12], the distribution power system in the given scenario is simulated by the EMTDC/PSCAD. In this condition, the remote circuit breakers operation delay, according to the ETE delay of the IED Ethernet LAN, which has been demonstrated in Part D as -3 about 3.70710 s. The corresponding specific time arrangement of the fault and CBs are presented in Fig. 13. The islanded distribution power system simulation results show that not only the islanded distribution power system, but also the WTs indeed keep stable under the control of the IED Ethernet LAN, as illustrated in Fig. 14 and Fig. 15.

Fig. 11. File size specification.

1 .0 5.0 03 70 7 15 .1 5 15 .2 03 70 7

3.71 3.705 3.7 ETE delay (ms) 3.695 3.69 3.685 3.68 3.675 3.67 0

Fig. 13. Fault and CBs time arrangements with Ethernet LAN.

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D. OPNET simulation results One day is taken as the simulation time period, i.e. 24 hours. The ETE delay of the Ethernet LAN within the 24 hours is illustrated in Fig. 12. From the results, the average -3 ETE delay can be recognized as 3.70710 s.

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with IEDs communication and without IEDs communication. Finally it is illustrated that with communication technologies the amount of calculation burden of the power system is dramatically reduced, thereby the system responses accelerated rapidly, which can better meet the power system stability and reliability requirements, though the cost of such communication system would be higher than convention communication system in power system. Further studies may focus on the applications of more communication technologies in power system control, protection and monitoring. REFERENCES
N. Cai, J. Wang and X. YuSCADA System Security: Complexity, History and New Developments Proc. of the 6th IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics, INDIN 2008 pp:569574, 2008. [2] D. J. Marihart, Communications technology guidelines for EMS/SCADA systems, IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 16, Issue 2, pp.181188, April 2001. [3] J. Newbury and W. Miller, Potential Metering Communication Services Using the Public Internet, IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 1202-1207, October 1999. [4] S. Mak and D. Radford, Communication System Requirements for Implementation of Large Scale Demand Side Management and Distribution Automation, IEEE Transaction on Power Delivery, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 683-689, April 1996. [5] M. Adamiak, and W. Premerlani, The Role of Utility Communications in a Deregulated Environment, Proceedings of the Hawaiis International Conference on System Sciences, Maui, Hawaii, January 1999, pp. 18. [6] P. M. Anderson, Power System Protection, McGraw-Hill, pp. 218, 1999 [7] J. Duncan Glover and Mulukutla S. Sarma, Power System Analysis and Design, Thomson Learning, pp. 438-491, 2002. [8] IEC 61850, IEC, Geneva, Switzerland. [9] J. D. Gibson, The Communications Handbook, CRC Press, 2002. [10] Access date 11th, March, 2010, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model. [11] Yanqiu Bi, Jianguo Zhao, and Dahai Zhang, Research on Power Communication Network and Power quality Monitoring Using OPNET, Second IEEE Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications, pp. 507-511, 2007. [12] Mu Wei, and Zhe Chen, Communication Systems and Study Method for Active Distribution Power System, NORDAC 2010 Conference, accepted, September, 2010. [1]

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Fig. 15. WTs are stable after fault with Ethernet LAN.

By comparing Fig. 8 (WTs under the condition without communication IEDs) and Fig. 15 (WTs under the condition with communication IEDs), the conclusion can be drawn out that the WTs in the distribution power system with communication technologies under some scenarios, can easily keep stable operation, which outstands the impact of communications in power system. V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK The significance of the communication technologies is demonstrated in the islanded distribution power system protection by a practical case in this paper. Firstly the Ethernet LAN based communication network is configured, and the LANs ETE delay attribute is obtained by the OPNET simulation. Secondly by deploying this attribute to the power system, the islanded distribution power system with WTs is simulated in the fault scenario with the instantaneous circuit breaker fails to operate. The islanded distribution power systems performance is investigated and compared between

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