542
2, APRIL 2014
A Novel Fault Current Control Scheme to Reduce
Synchronous DG’s Impact on Protection Coordination
Hesam Yazdanpanahi, Student Member, IEEE, Wilsun Xu, Fellow, IEEE, and Yun Wei Li, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—Synchronous-machine DGs are well known to cause
miscoordination of distribution system protections because of the
generator’s ability to contribute large fault currents to the fault.
This paper proposes a field discharge circuit to limit the gener-
ator’s fault current, thus leading to a synchronous-machine DG
with little impact on distribution system protection. In this paper,
the operation of a solid-state switch-based field discharge circuit
is studied, and its effects on the generator’s output current during
the fault are investigated. It is shown that the proposed scheme
removes the steady-state component of the fault current and ac-
celerates the decay of the transient ac component of the current.
The results demonstrate that the proposed field discharge circuit
is sufficient to prevent miscoordination of the feeder protections
when short time-delay and/or inverse-time overcurrent relays are
involved in the protection scheme.
Index Terms—Compatibility, distributed generation (DG), fault,
field discharge, overcurrent protection, synchronous generator.
NOMENCLATURE
Total flux linkage of the -axis.
Total flux linkage of the -axis.
Laplace operator.
Angular velocity.
Field winding resistance.
Stator resistance.
-axis damper winding resistance.
-axis damper winding resistance.
Field excitation voltage.
Instantaneous -axis machine’s terminal
voltage.
Instantaneous -axis machine’s terminal
voltage.
-axis machine’s terminal voltage magnitude.
-axis machine’s terminal voltage magnitude.
-axis winding’s current.
-axis winding’s current.
Field winding’s current.
Manuscript received December 07, 2012; revised April 01, 2013 and May
31, 2013; accepted July 10, 2013. Date of publication August 23, 2013; date of
current version March 20, 2014. Paper no. TPWRD-01331-2012.
The authors are with the University of Alberta, Electrical and Computer En-
gineering, Edmonton, AB T6G 2V4 Canada.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2013.2276948
0885-8977 © 2013 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 29, NO.
Generator’s current at phase .
AC component of current at phase .
AC RMS ac component of current at phase .
DC component of current at phase .
-axis winding’s total inductance.
-axis winding’s mutual inductance.
Laplace transform of the -axis winding’s
reactance.
Laplace transform of the -axis winding’s
reactance.
-axis synchronous reactance.
-axis synchronous reactance.
-axis winding’s mutual reactance.
-axis winding’s mutual reactance.
-axis damper winding’s leakage reactance.
-axis damper winding’s leakage reactance.
Armature leakage reactance.
-axis transient short-circuit time constant.
-axis subtransient short-circuit time constant.
-axis transient open-circuit time constant.
-axis subtransient open-circuit time constant.
-axis subtransient short-circuit time constant.
-axis subtransient open-circuit time constant.
Armature time constant.
I. INTRODUCTION
D ESPITE their undoubted advantages, distributed-gener-
ation (DG) units can negatively impact the distribution
protection system and result in serious protection malfunctions,
such as false tripping, relay desensitization, and miscoordina-
tion between the main and backup protections [1]–[5]. Most
of these problems are due to the DG’s contribution to the fault
current.
To mitigate the DG’s impact on the distribution protection
system, several methods have been proposed, which can be clas-
sified into the following categories:
1) tripping the DG immediately after fault detection;
2) limiting the DG capacity [6]–[8];
YAZDANPANAHI et al.: NOVEL FAULT CURRENT CONTROL SCHEME 543

3) modifying the protection system by using extra breakers or

reclosers, reconfiguration of the network, or using distance
or directional relays [9]–[12];
4) using adaptive protection [13]–[15];
5) utilizing fault current limiters (FCLs) [16]–[18].
Although these methods are effective for mitigating the DG
impact on the protection system, they have some obvious dis-
advantages. Tripping the DG immediately after fault detection
increases nuisance DG trips which are not desirable especially Fig. 1. Synchronous generator with its field discharge circuit.
at high DG penetration levels and when considering most faults
are temporary. Limiting the DG capacity is not desirable since
doing so also limits the DG penetration level. Modifying the
protection system is costly. Moreover, doing so requires utility
involvement and makes the protection procedure more compli-
cated. Similarly, adaptive protection requires new communica-
tion infrastructures as well as fast processing units. Finally, uti-
lizing FCLs is also undesirable because of the additional cost Fig. 2. Sample distribution network with synchronous-machine DG.
that using them imposes on the utility or DG owners.
This paper proposes a novel strategy to increase synchronous-
machine DG compatibility with distribution networks by miti- TABLE I
OPERATIONAL CONSTANTS OF THE SIMULATED
gating its negative impact on the protection system. The idea SYNCHRONOUS MACHINE [19]
is to establish a method to restrict the DG’s contribution to the
fault current, and consequently, prevent its impact on the over-
current (OC) protection. This idea is implemented by equipping
the generator with a solid-state-switch-based field discharge cir-
cuit. In comparison to other published or practiced methods, the
proposed solution is simpler and, more important, does not re-
quire utility involvement.
In this paper, the idea of utilizing a field discharge circuit is
described in Section II. Next, a detailed analysis is presented
in Section III, which includes a study of the synchronous ma- a discharge resistance is put in series with it to dissipate the
chine’s time constants and its fault current, and an analysis of the energy stored in the magnetic field.
effect of the field discharge application on the synchronous-ma- In order to investigate the effectiveness of this idea, a distribu-
chine DG’s contribution to the fault current. Subsequently, a tion network was simulated in Matlab/SIMULINK (see Fig. 2).
field discharge trigger mechanism is proposed in Section IV. In this system, embedding the DG at any of points S, A or B
Next, a case study is provided in Section V. Finally, Section VI may cause miscoordination between B1 and B2. In this simula-
presents the conclusion. tion, a synchronous-machine DG is arbitrarily embedded at S.
The synchronous machine’s parameters were taken from [19]
II. IDEA OF UTILIZING THE FIELD DISCHARGE CIRCUIT and tabulated in Table I.
Basically, the main source of a generator’s output current is Fig. 3 shows the rms of the generator’s output current during
the machine’s flux linkage which is established by the field’s the fault at point F, and Fig. 4 shows the rms of its ac component.
excitation. As a result, the controlling machine’s excitation can Note that most of protection devices, such as OC relays, filter
lead to the control of the machine’s output current. In case of the dc component of fault current and operate based on the rms
fault, discharging the flux linkage could decrease the generator’s of the ac component. The factor shows the ratio of total field
output current, eliminate its contribution to the fault, and con- circuit’s resistance, when the field discharge is applied, to its
sequently, prevent OC protection miscoordination. In addition, original one ( , where is the field
putting an external resistance in series with the field circuit when discharge resistance).
the excitation voltage is being removed can accelerate the ma- As Fig. 4 reveals, except for the synchronous-machine DG
chine’s discharge process. This procedure is called “field dis- with traditional excitation, the ac components of the machines’
charge.” Briefly, the idea is to utilize the field discharge circuit to output currents are decreasing. Fig. 4 also shows that applying a
minimize the generator’s output current during grid faults and, field discharge can remarkably decrease the ac component of the
consequently, prevent it from impacting the existing protection synchronous machine’s output during the fault. In the studied
system. case, the value of this current 0.2 sec. after the beginning of
Fig. 1 shows a synchronous generator with its solid-state the fault is 1.53, 1.25, and 0.64 p.u. for 3.7, 6.25, and 15,
switch-based field discharge circuit in which S1 and S2 are respectively.
controllable switches. In the proposed application, when a fault In addition, from these figures, it can be concluded that larger
is detected, the control unit closes S2 and then, opens S1. As resistances lead to faster decay in the ac component. However,
a result, the exciter is disconnected from field winding, and the field discharge resistance causes an overvoltage on field
544 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 29, NO. 2, APRIL 2014

tion does not significantly affect the resulting short-circuit cur-

rent or the conclusion about the effect of field discharge circuit
on it.
The -axis flux linkage of the machine can be written in terms
of the -axis current and the machine’s excitation voltage as
follows [21]:

(1)
Fig. 3. RMS of a machine’s output current during a three-phase fault at point
F. where

(2)

(3)

and

(4)

(5)
Fig. 4. RMS ac component of a machine’s output current during a fault at point
F.
(6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

(10)

Fig. 5. Voltage which appears at the field winding during the fault. In order to obtain the principal time constants of the machine,
should be rewritten as

winding (see Fig. 5). This overvoltage must not be higher than (11)
the winding’s maximum permissible voltage. According to the
recommendation in [20], it can be shown that 3.7 is the
largest resistance that can be used for DG with a 220 V field- , , , and are the principal time constants. Then
rated voltage and that 6.25 is the largest for a DG with a
110 V field-rated voltage. Therefore, 15 is not practical (12)
and is used only to clearly demonstrate the impact of the field (13)
discharge resistance.
By solving (12) and (13), the principal time constants of the
-axis will be determined. However, because normally,
III. DETAILED ANALYSIS , the following approximations have been accepted in [21]:

A. Synchronous Machine’s Constants (14)

(15)
In this subsection, the time constants and operational reac-
tances of a synchronous machine are reviewed. These param- (16)
eters will be used in the next subsection to determine the syn- (17)
chronous machine’s fault current. In practice, considering the
generator’s input-power constant during the fault is more real- Similarly, is defined as follows:
istic. However, in the calculations and simulations in this sec-
tion, the synchronous generator’s speed is assumed constant, so (18)
that the equations can be solved mathematically. This assump-
YAZDANPANAHI et al.: NOVEL FAULT CURRENT CONTROL SCHEME 545

where 1) the decaying ac at twice fundamental frequency which is

negligible due to the fact that ;
2) the decaying dc
(19)

(20)
(26)
During the subtransient condition, the operational imped-
ances are 3) the ac at the fundamental frequency, which itself consists
of three parts: subtransient, transient, and steady state
(21)

(22)

During the transient condition, when the damper windings

have no effect, the operational impedance is (27)

(23)
Finally, during the steady-state operation of the synchronous
machine, the operational impedances are and
, which are and , respectively.
B. Synchronous Machine’s Fault Current
For a three-phase solid fault at the generator’s terminals, the
- and -axes currents and, subsequently, the phase currents, are
achieved by solving the following set of equations [21]:
(24)
By solving (24) and converting the parameters into ones,
the current at phase is obtained as (25), where is the angle
between the field and phase coils’ axes at the fault instant. To
achieve and , should be replaced by and
, respectively
In the following text, the effect of the field discharge cir-
cuit operation on the machine’s current during the fault is
investigated.
C. Effect of Field Discharge on the Synchronous Machine’s
Contribution to Fault
In field discharge application, when a fault is detected, the
control unit closes S2 and then opens S1. Because the operation
time of the control unit and switches is much less than the ma-
chine’s time constants, the field discharge activation is consid-
ered instantaneous in this paper. In addition, the field discharge
operation can be considered as combining two actions together:
1) removing the excitation and 2) increasing the field circuit’s
resistance. In the following text, the effects of each action on the
generator’s short-circuit current are studied separately, and then
the effect of the field discharge circuit operation is obtained as
the superposition of these effects.
Excitation removal eliminates the steady-state part of the ac
component from the generator’s current. Fig. 6 shows the short-
circuit current of a synchronous generator (for its parameters see
Table I) when the field winding is short-circuited. As Fig. 6(a)
shows, the steady-state value of the current is zero. Fig. 6(b)
shows the first 18 cycles of Fig. 6(a).
To take the effect of the field discharge resistance into ac-
count, should be replaced with in calculating
and . As a result, when the discharge resistance is added
in series to the field winding at the fault instance, the following
changes in the machine’s time constants are anticipated:

(28)

(29)

(25)
Moreover, substituting (28) and (29) into (21) and (23) is
not expected to change the operational reactances. As a result,
As (25) reveals, the fault current consists of three the generator’s output current is expected to be obtained by re-
components: placing and with and in (25), respectively.
546 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 29, NO. 2, APRIL 2014

Fig. 8. Accurate estimation of the synchronous generator’s fault current with

a discharge resistance in series with its field.

Then, and can be obtained by accurately solving

the following quadratic equations:

Fig. 6. Synchronous generator’s fault current with short-circuited field

winding: (a) complete waveform and (b) first 18 cycles. (32)

(33)

and, consequently, the operational reactances are achieved as

follows:

(34)

(35)

Fig. 8 shows how this procedure improves the estimation of the

generator’s fault current. Now, the effect of field discharge cir-
cuit operation is the superposition of the effects of these two
aforementioned actions, that is, the generator’s current has no
steady-state part, and , , , and are replaced by
, , , and , which are obtained from
(30)–(35). Briefly, the generator’s output current for a three-
Fig. 7. Synchronous generator’s fault current with discharge resistance in se- phase solid fault at its terminals when the field discharge cir-
ries with field winding: (a) complete waveform and (b) first six cycles. cuit operates at the fault instance can be obtained as

Fig. 7 shows the generator’s output current when a discharge re-

sistance is added to the field circuit at the fault instant. The com-
parison between Fig. 7(a) and Fig. 6(a) reveals that the transi-
tion to steady state in Fig. 7 is much faster. Moreover, Fig. 7(b)
shows that (28) and (29) are not accurate enough; that is., the
anticipated time constants are smaller than the real values and,
as a result, the expected current is not close enough to the gen-
erator’s output current because (14) to (17) are true on the con-
dition that . However, when a large discharge resis-
tance is added, this assumption is no longer true.
Under such circumstances, the machine’s operational param-
eters should be recalculated as follows:

(30)

(31) (36)
YAZDANPANAHI et al.: NOVEL FAULT CURRENT CONTROL SCHEME
Fig. 9. Synchronous generator’s fault current with field discharge operation:
(a) complete waveform and (b) first nine cycles.
Fig. 9 shows the effect of the field discharge circuit opera-
tion on the generator’s output current during the three-phase
solid fault at the generator’s terminals. The comparison between
this figure and Fig. 6 shows that the field discharge circuit has
almost no impact on the subtransient part of the ac compo-
nent of the generator’s current (the first few cycles) because the
damper windings, but not the field winding, play the dominant
role during the subtransient period. In contrast, the field dis-
charge operation accelerates the decrease in the transient com-
ponent. Also, the comparison between Figs. 9 and 7 shows that
the field discharge circuit removes the steady-state part of the
fault current.
For OC relay coordination, the dc part of the generator’s cur-
rent can be neglected because these relays operate based on the
rms of the ac component of current. Also, the second-order har-
monic is negligible. Therefore
(37)
Note that is a random variable and depends on the fault
instance. Since the OC relays operate based on the rms of the ac
component of the current, it is advantageous to obtain the rms
of (37), which is as follows:
(38)
where
(39)
547
Fig. 10. Sample distribution feeder with synchronous-machine DG.
Fig. 11. RMS ac component of the generator’s fault current with field discharge
operation in the system shown in Fig. 10.
And
(40)
The operation of OC devices normally coincides with the
generator’s transient response. Consequently, (38) can be sim-
plified by neglecting the subtransient terms in (39) and (40).
Such an estimation is accurate from the 4th cycle after the fault
instance 0.05 s)
(41)
For distant faults, assume that the equivalent impedance from
the generator’s terminals to the fault is
(42)
In this situation, the generator’s contribution can be estimated
by making modifications as follows.
• In calculating all of the time constants and operational re-
actances, should be replaced by .
• In calculating all of the time constants and operational re-
actances, should be replaced by .
As an example, Fig. 11 shows the RMS ac component of the
generator’s current when the fault happens to be 1.6 km away
from the generator’s terminals in the sample network shown in
Fig. 10, and the field discharge is applied 3). The estimated
curve is obtained from (41) with the modifications mentioned
before.
Now, the effect of the field discharge in reducing the gener-
ator’s rms ac current can be evaluated by deducting the rms of
the ac component of (25) from (41). As a result, the reduction
in the rms ac component of current due to field discharge can be
expressed as follows:
(43)
548
Fig. 12. Reduction in the synchronous generator’s rms ac component of fault
current due to the application of field discharge.
Fig. 13. Reduction in the generator’s rms ac component of fault current for
different values of field discharge resistance.
Fig. 12 shows the reduction in the rms ac component of the
generator caused by the field discharge 3). The solid curve
was obtained from the simulation, and the dashed curve was
obtained from (41). As Fig. 12 reveals, after 0.05 s} (three
cycles after the fault instance), the estimated result matches the
simulated one.
Now, by utilizing (43), the effect of the different values of
field discharge resistances in reducing the generator’s fault cur-
rent can be compared. Fig. 13 shows the reduction in the rms ac
component of the generator’s fault current for different values
of . To explain the effect of the field discharge operation on
protection devices’ coordination, three time intervals are shown
in Fig. 13. Typically, instantaneous OC devices operate in in-
terval 1, extremely inverse-time and short time-delay OC de-
vices operate in interval 2, and inverse and very inverse time
OC devices operate in interval 3 [22][23]. As Fig. 13 shows,
the maximum reduction in the generator’s contribution due to
the field discharge operation is 0.15 p.u in interval 1. It means
that the field discharge is not effective enough to prevent misco-
ordination when instantaneous devices are involved. In interval
2, the maximum reduction is 1 p.u. which means that the field
discharge can be an effective mechanism to prevent miscoor-
dination when extremely inverse-time and short time-delay OC
devices are involved. Finally, in interval 3, the maximum reduc-
tion in the generator’s contribution can be up to 1.4 p.u. which
means that field discharge is a very effective mechanism when
inverse and very inverse time OC devices are involved.
The aforementioned analysis was based on the assumption
that the OC relays measure the ac component of current. How-
ever, fuses and some old electromechanical relays operate based
on the total current. In such cases, the total rms current of the
synchronous generator should be considered. For phase , this
current can be obtained as follows:
(44)
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 29, NO. 2, APRIL 2014
Fig. 14. Fault current components of the synchronous generator: (a) when tra-
ditional excitation is applied and (b) when field discharge is applied.
According to (26), the dc component is decaying with arma-
ture’s time constant, and is not a function of field circuit param-
eters. So, field discharge has no impact on the dc component
. However, field discharge can minimize by reducing
the ac component of DG’s current . Fig. 14 shows the
impact of field discharge application on the DG’s fault current
components. As Fig. 14(a) reveals, when the traditional excita-
tion system is applied, during the transient period, the dc com-
ponent decreases, while the ac component increases due to the
excitation’s response to voltage drop. This results in almost con-
stant total rms current around 3 p.u. In contrast, as Fig. 14(b) re-
veals, when the field discharge is applied, both ac and dc compo-
nents are decaying. This results in a decaying total rms current
which decreases to around 1.4 p.u. in 0.2 s. Therefore, when
field discharge is applied, the generator has smaller contribu-
tions to total fault current, and higher DG capacity can be em-
bedded without causing any miscoordination in comparison to
the cases in which the DG utilizes the traditional excitation con-
trol during the fault.
IV. FIELD DISCHARGE TRIGGER MECHANISM
In the above sections, it was supposed that there is a mecha-
nism which accurately and quickly detects the fault occurrence
in the network, and triggers the field discharge circuit. In fol-
lowing, this mechanism will be described.
The first and the most important step in trigger mechanism
is fault detection. To do so, one of the generator’s local voltage
or current signals should be selected and monitored. To be an
appropriate grid fault indicator, this signal should have the fol-
lowing properties:
1) Its variation due to grid faults should be so fast that fault
occurrence is detected as quickly as possible.
2) This signal should have distinctive levels for different grid
disturbances so that close grid faults can be distinguished
from other disturbances.
Considering these necessary properties, derivative of the
field’s current is an appropriate indicative signal. Fig. 15 shows
YAZDANPANAHI et al.: NOVEL FAULT CURRENT CONTROL SCHEME
Fig. 15. Field’s current derivative for three different grid disturbances.
TABLE II
LOADS IN FIG. 2
the derivative of the field’s current for the generator with the
parameters tabulated in Table I, for three different disturbances:
three-phase fault in the generator’s neighbourhood, one-phase
fault at one of the generator’s terminals, and a large sudden
load change at the generator’s node. As Fig. 15 shows, these
signals have three distinguished levels in the first cycle after the
disturbances. As a result, by appropriately defining thresholds,
the type of disturbance can be easily and accurately deter-
mined. In addition, it can be seen that for three-phase faults in
which the DG unit has the most contribution, and has the most
probable impact on coordination, the indicative signal has an
almost instantaneous jump which help detect the fault in few
milliseconds. After fault detection, control unit closes S2 and
opens S1.
It should be noted that when this method is implemented, the
generator’s overcurrent protection is set so that it protects the
generator from damages due to overcurrent/overload. In other
words, when field discharge circuit is implemented, the DG’s
overcurrent relay is set similar to those of the generators con-
nected to the transmission system, and there is no conflict be-
tween generator’s overcurrent protection and field discharge ap-
plication. IEEE Standard C.37.102-2006 can be followed in this
case [25].
The last step is detecting the fault clearance and disabling the
field discharge circuit which can be detected by monitoring the
generator’s terminal voltages.
V. CASE STUDY
Consider Fig. 2 again. In this 25 kV distribution system, the
upstream network is represented by a Thevenin equivalent of a
voltage source and a series impedance
p.u., and the feeder is composed of four-wire overhead ACSR
conductors represented by series impedance
p.u./km ( 25 kV, 100 MVA). As Fig. 2
shows, the feeder has four sections. The lengths of all sections
are 500 m, except for the length of CD’, which is 1 km. This
system also has four three-phase laterals, and the total load of
each lateral is shown in Table II.
As Fig. 2 reveals, the feeder is protected by two breakers,
B1 and B2, and the laterals L1 to L4 are protected by fuses.
549
TABLE III
RELAYS’ SETTINGS
TABLE IV
OVERCURRENT DEVICES’ CURRENT AND OPERATION TIMES FOR VARIOUS
FAULT LOCATIONS WHEN THERE IS NO DG UNIT
Each breaker is associated with two OC relays: one short time
delay and one inverse time. The short time-delay relays are set to
protect 80% of their sections, and the inverse-time relays are set
to coordinate with next protection elements and act as backup.
The pickup current of short time-delay relay of B2 is set equal
to the fault current at F2, and the pickup current of the short
time-delay relay of B1 is set equal to the fault current at F1. In
addition, the TSM of the inverse-time relay of B2 is set so that
B2 acts as backup for the fuse at L3 in case of a fault at F4.
Similarly, the TSM of the inverse-time relay of B1 is set to act
as a backup for the short time-delay relay of B2 in case of a fault
at F3. Table III shows the relays’ settings, and Table IV shows
their operation times for different fault locations when no DG
is in the system.
When a synchronous-machine DG unit (with the parameters
tabulated in Table I) is added to the substation, its contribution
to the fault increases the fault current flowing through protection
devices. Such an increase may cause miscoordination between
B1 and B2. As an example, consider the fault at F3. When there
is no DG, the current through B2 is 4187A. This result leads to
operation of its short time-delay relay, while the current through
B1 is 4190A. This result causes the operation of its inverse-time
relay. However, when the DG is added, if it increases the fault
current at F3 above 4440 A (the pickup current of B1’s short
time-delay relay), both B1 and B2 operate simultaneously, and
the entire feeder is de-energized. Fig. 16 shows the fault current
at F3 for the case with 5 MW DG. As this figure reveals, for
DG’s with higher capacities, the coordination between B1 and
B2 will be lost. As an example, Fig. 17 shows how a 6.5 MW
DG moves the protection operation points from “A” to “B” and
causes miscoordination.
Nevertheless, the field discharge circuit operation can main-
tain the coordination between B1 and B2 for DG units larger
than 5 MW. Consider that a 6.5 MW DG is connected to the sub-
station through a transformer with MVA equal to 130% of the
DG’s, and 6% series impedance. Also, imagine that the DG’s
field’s rated voltage is 220 V. According to Section II, the max-
imum-allowable is 3.7. For this system, Fig. 18 shows the
fault current at F3. As this figure shows, when a field discharge
resistance is applied to the DG during the fault, it reduces the
DG’s contribution, so that the fault current is decreased below
4440 A in less than 0.1 s which blocks the operation of the short
550
Fig. 16. Fault current at F3 when a 5 MW SMDG is added at the substation.
Fig. 17. Impact of a 6.5 MW SMDG on the relays’ operation points.
Fig. 18. Effect of field discharge circuit on eliminating the impact of a 6.5 MW
synchronous-machine DG.
TABLE V
RELAYS’ CURRENTS AND OPERATION TIMES FOR A FAULT AT
6.5 MW DG AT THE SUBSTATION
time-delay relay at B1, and consequently, maintains the coordi-
nation. Table V shows the protection devices’ operation times
for the fault at F3, and a for a 6.5 MW DG at the substation. In
fact, the field discharge application increases the maximum-al-
lowable capacity of DG from 5 MW (equal to 48% of the total
load in the distribution system), to 6.5 MW (equal to 63% of the
total load). Note that in the simulation, a detailed model of the
prime mover is used.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the idea of applying a field discharge circuit to
the synchronous-machine DG to mitigate its impact on the OC
protection coordination (by reducing its contribution to fault)
and, consequently, to increase its compatibility with the dis-
tribution system, was proposed. Next, through a detailed anal-
ysis, the effect of operating a field discharge circuit on the syn-
chronous generator’s current during the fault was investigated.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 29, NO. 2, APRIL 2014
The operation of the field discharge circuit was explained, and
its effects on the generator’s output current during the fault were
analyzed. It was shown that the first effect is the removal of the
steady-state part of the generator’s current. The second effect
is the reduction of the -axis transient principal time constants.
Next, the ac component of the generator’s current was specifi-
cally analyzed, and the reduction in the rms of this component
was demonstrated for different time intervals. It was shown that
applying the field discharge circuit could sufficiently reduce the
generator’s contribution to fault current and, as a result, prevent
miscoordination when short time-delay and/or inverse-time OC
relays were involved. Finally, a case study was presented to con-
firm the previous conclusions.
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Hesam Yazdanpanahi (S’11) received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical
engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2007
and 2009, respectively, and is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical
and computer engineering at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
His research interests are distributed generation (DG) and power system
protection.
551
Wilsun Xu (F’05) received the Ph.D. degree in power engineering from the
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, in 1989.
From 1989 to 1996, he was an Electrical Engineer with BC Hydro, Vancouver,
BC, Canada. Currently, he is a Research Chair Professor with the University of
Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. He also works in areas, such as power mea-
surements, distributed generation, and voltage stability. His current research in-
terests are power quality and power disturbance analytics.
Yun Wei Li (S’04–M’05–SM’11) received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engi-
neering from Tianjin University, Tianjin, China, in 2002, and the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in
2006.
In 2005, he was a Visiting Scholar with the Aalborg University, Aalborg,
Denmark. From 2006 to 2007, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at
Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada. In 2007, he was also with Rockwell
Automation Canada, Cambridge, ON, Canada, before he joined the University
of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada, in the same year. Currently, he is an
Associate Professor at the University of Alberta. He is an Associate Editor for
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS and a Guest Editor for
the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS SPECIAL SESSION ON
DISTRIBUTED GENERATION AND MICROGRIDS. His research interests include
distributed generation, microgrid, renewable energy, high-power converters,
and electric motor drives.
Dr. Li received the Richard M. Bass Outstanding Young Power Electronics
Engineer Award of the IEEE Power Electronics Society in 2013.