Coordination of Dual-Setting Overcurrent and Distance Relays for Meshed Distribution Networks with Distributed Generations and Dynamic Voltage Restorer

Simultaneous coordination of dual-setting directional overcurrent relays (DOCRs) and distance relays (DRs) is capable of providing reliable protection in a meshed distribution network (MDN). However, survey of literature on coordination of DRs and dual-setting DOCRs, reveals changes in system topology, especially in the presence of distributed generations (DGs), affects the coordination. As penetrations of DGs are increasing with time and in few years in a row, MDN with 100% penetration is also possible, an improved coordination of dual-setting DOCRs & DRs is targeted in this work. With nonstandard characteristic of DOCR, an innovative objective function is proposed and explored for optimum settings with particle swarm optimization (PSO) and gray wolf optimization (GWO). With various simulation studies, the performance of the proposed approach is investigated with and without compensation using a dynamic voltage restorer (DVR). The proposed method is validated on modified 14-bus and 39-bus test systems. The simulation results depict that the proposed approach can solve the miscoordination problem and the number of relays, operating time, and coordination time interval (CTI) of relays are also minimized. Comparison with convention approach demonstrates the benefits of proposed approach.