A Study on Relay Coordination in a Distribution
System with Distributed Generation and Hybrid
SFCL
Shashank Kumar De
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli
Tamil Nadu-620015, India
Abstract— The objective of protective relay coordination in
a distribution system is to achieve selectivity without
sacrificing sensitivity and fast fault clearance time. When a DG
is installed in a distribution system, they change the original
steady-state and fault current magnitudes, on which the
original relay settings were set. The severity is based on DG’s
capacity and its location. Usually disconnection of all DGs
from distribution system is the current local distribution
company’s practise during fault, in order to maintain the
original relay coordination. However, instead of removing DG
it is better to limit the fault current from the DG. In this paper
hybrid super conducting fault current limiter which gives a
promising solution to limit fault current without much loss in
electrical energy is considered, modelled and simulated in
PSCAD as a countermeasure to limit fault current from DG,
in order to improve the disrupted original relay coordination.
Keywords— Distributed Generation (DG), OCR (Over
Current Relay), FCL (Fault Current Limiter), WTGS (Wind
Turbine Generator System), SFCL (Super Conducting Fault
Current Limiter), CTI (Coordination Time Interval).
I. INTRODUCTION
Power system protection deals with the protection of
electrical power systems from faults, through the isolation of
faulted parts from the rest of the electrical network. The
objective of a protection scheme is to keep the power system
stable by isolating only the components that are under fault,
while leaving as much of the network as possible still in
operation. In that without having any mal-operation of
protective devices is very essential. Thus, the protection
coordination between the primary and the secondary
protective devices plays an important role in minimizing an
outage to the greatest extent possible. A failure of primary
protection will usually result in the operation of back-up
protection. Back-up protection will generally remove both
the affected and unaffected items of system to clear the fault.
To coordinate this back-up protection with the primary relay,
the relay characteristic should ensure that the back-up relay
has sufficient time delay to allow the primary relay (and its
breaker) to clear the fault.
When electric power systems expand and become
complex due to improvement in the grid connections with
the incorporation of Distributed Generator (DG) into the
978-1-4673-5943-6/13/$31.00 © 2103 IEEE
P.Raja, IEEE Member
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli
Tamil Nadu-620015, India, email: praja@nitt.edu
power system. This will increase the fault current levels
which results in damage of the electrical equipment and also
affect the existing coordination between relays and may
prevent this relays from detecting a fault, which is supposed
to be within its protection zone [1]. In [2], a new approach is
proposed to solve the directional over-current relay
coordination problems, which arises from installing DG in
looped Power Delivery Systems (PDS) by implementing
fault current limiters to locally limit the DG fault current,
and thus restore the original relay coordination. The basic
idea was to limit the fault current so it does not matter if the
system is disconnected from supply. Many other methods
were used to limit the current, like air core reactors, basically
it was a good approach but the only disadvantage was very
high voltage drop in normal operation, for which VAR
compensation is required. The increase in the size of the
system is the other disadvantage of this approach. Hence the
approach of FCL was taken up to overcome the issue
mentioned in the case of large reactor The general operation
of a FCL as a circuit element and, more specifically, the
operation of superconducting SFCL, its designing, HTSC
(High Temperature Super Conducting) element characteristic
resistance equations and its recovery characteristics after
current limitation are reported in [3-7]. To overcome the
problems of large volume of superconducting components
required for conventional SFCL (resistive and flux-lock
type) and their slow recovery time after the current
limitation, development of hybrid SFCL using HTSC
element as an alternate solution is discussed in [8].
When a wind-turbine generator system (WTGS) is
installed in a radial distribution system as a DG, the
increased fault current reduces the Coordination Time
Interval (CTI) between the multiple relays therefore disrupts
their coordination [9]. In [10], investigations were carried out
to assess the effectiveness of the resistive SFCL for fault
level management in wind power system. In this paper,
PSCAD modelling of hybrid type SFCL and its effectiveness
in improving the CTI between protective devices so as to
retain the original relay coordination when WTGS is added
to a distribution system are reported.
 II. MODELLING OF HYBRID SFCL AND PROTECTIVE (CLR). To attain enough current in the driving coil after the
RELAY COORDINATION current quench in the HTSC, the switch BRK2a is kept in
A. Modelling of Hybrid SFCL closed state until the current in the driving coil reaches the
High Temperature Superconductor Fault Current set value. After the closing of BRK1a and opening of
Limiters (HT-SFCL) uses the unique relationship between BRK2a, the BRK3a is opened by the control circuit. It
the resistance and temperature in superconductors, to limit finally leads to the fault current limiting operation by the
potentially damaging short circuit currents whenever fault CLR. The designed parameters of the hybrid SFCL using
occurs. Superconducting materials like Bi-2222, Bi-2223 breakers to simulate the fast switch are shown in Table I.
and YBCO (YBa2Cu3O7) are perfect conductors of
electricity, having zero resistance when they are cooled
below critical temperature. Generally, the quench
development and recovery of the HTSC element comprising
the SFCL proceed through the complicated physical
process. In this paper, the mathematical equations, which
were previously verified through the experiments for the
HTSC elements are shown in the equations (1), (2) and (3).

1
⎡ ⎛ t − t o ⎞⎤ 2
R SFCL (t) = R n ⎢1 − exp⎜⎜ − ⎟⎟⎥ (t o < t < t 1 ) (1)
⎣ ⎝ TF ⎠⎦

R SFCL(t) = a(t − t 1 ) + R r ( t1 < t < t 2 ) (2)

R SFCL ( t ) = b ( t − t 2 ) + R r 1 ( t > t2 ) (3)

Fig.1. Circuit configuration of the Hybrid SFCL

The equation (1), describes the resistance variation of the
HTSC element, when the quench occurs and the equations Iaa1 Ibr1
(2) and (3) express the recovery resistance curve of the BRK1a BRK3a
HTSC element. The HTSC element recovers back to its
superconducting state in two stages. Initially, it recovers
slowly for certain milliseconds and then in second stage it
recovers quickly to superconducting state. In equation (1), Id1 Iclr1
Rn, TF and to represents the convergence resistance, time
e1l 0.01 [H] 10[ohm] e1r
constant and quench starting time, respectively. Rr, a and t1,
in equation (2), represents the recovery starting resistance,
the initial recovery slope and the recovery starting time,
respectively. Rr1, b and t2 in equation (3), represents the Isc1
+
second stage recovery starting resistance, the recovery slope BRK2a
and the recovery starting time, respectively. Esc1 htscc
The hybrid SFCL largely consists of the Fast Switch
Fig.2. PSCAD model of the Hybrid SFCL
(SW), current limiting part and HTSC element as shown in
Fig. 1. The complicated structure of the hybrid SFCL using
the fast switch, which has two mechanical switches (the
Vacuum Interrupter (VI) and the Short Bar (SB)), the driving TABLE I DESIGNED PARAMETERS OF HYBRID SFCL
coil and the Electro-Magnetic (EM) repulsion plate is Fast Switch Value Unit
modelled in PSCAD software and simulated as shown in Set value to close BRK1a (SB) 2.5 A (rms)
Fig. 2. Initially, VI and the breaking switch are in closed
Set value to open BRK2a (VI) 4 A (rms)
states, whereas the SB is in open state. To realize the
operation the hybrid SFCL, the fast switch is simulated Self inductance of driving coil 10 mH
using the breakers (BRK1a, BRK2a). The switch BRK1a, Current Limiting Part Value Unit
corresponding to the SB is made to close by the control Set value to open BRK3a 5 A (rms)
circuit, when the bypassed quench current flowing into the
driving coil from the HTSC element exceeds the Resistance of CLR 10 Ω
predetermined value. The switch BRK2a, corresponding to
the VI is opened by the control circuit operated same
process as the switch BRK1a. The current limiting part
consists of BRK3a and the Current Limiting Resistance
B. Protective Relay Coordination The hybrid SFCL with CLR value of 10 Ω is connected
The protective relays and their associated systems are between bus 3 and the WTGS. All of the loads (P+jQ) are
defined as the power system protection components, which rated at 0.4 MW and 0.13 MVAR. The distribution voltage
should operate the circuit breakers correctly so as to is 13.8 kV and the supply frequency is 50 Hz for the
disconnect only the faulty part from the system as quickly as considered system.
possible. Among the various protection schemes, this paper 2 3
1 4 5
focuses on the over-current protection that is commonly
used in distribution systems. If the primary and the back-up
OCR-1 OCR-2 OCR-3 OCR-4
relay currents for the given fault are known, then the
operating time of all relays, tprimary and tback-up, can be R12+iX12 R23+iX23 R34+iX34 R45+iX45
calculated from the following equations based on their pick- Substation
up current (Ipick-up) and time-dial setting (TDS).
P+jQ P+jQ SFCL P+jQ P+jQ P+jQ
⎛ A ⎞
t primary = TDS primary × ⎜ + B⎟ (4)
⎜ Mc ⎟
⎝ primary − 1 ⎠ C4
WTGS
I f, primary
M c primary = (5)
I pick − up, primary
Fig.3. The simple radial network with five buses
⎛ A ⎞
t back − up = TDS back − up × ⎜ c + B ⎟ (6) TABLE II IMPEDANCE OF THE DISTRIBUTION LINES
⎜M ⎟
⎝ back − up − 1 ⎠ Line Line Impedance
I f, back − up From To Series resistance Series reactance
M c back − up = bus bus (R) in Ω (X) in Ω
I pick − up, back − up 1 2 2.4 9.6
2 3 1.6 6.4
where the coefficients, A, B and C are selected as 3.922, 3 4 2.0 8.0
0.0982 and 2, respectively, based on IEEE Std.C37.112. The 4 5 3.2 12.8
OCR generates the trip signal, when the fault current
exceeds the predefined value of Ipick-up. Also, its inverse-time IV. PSCAD SIMULATIONS
characteristics can be shifted up or down by adjusting the
TDS. To ensure relay coordination, tback-up must be greater The test distribution system discussed in the section III is
than tprimary with respect to same fault location. The time modeled as such in PSCAD software. The modeling of the
difference is defined as the coordination time interval (CTI), system includes the modeling of the OCR using IDMT
which is represented by (Inverse Definite Minimum Time) relay setting also. In the
test system, when a three phase short circuit fault occurs at
bus 5 in Fig. 3 at 4 s, the WTGS increases fault current
CTI = t back − up − t primary (7)
when compared to the one without WTGS also. The
coordination between the two protective relays OCR-3 and
The minimum CTI value is chosen based on the practice OCR-4 may then be disrupted. By integrating the hybrid
code of the utility, which includes relay over-travel time, the SFCL in the system the coordination between them may be
breaker operating time, and the safety margin for the relay improved. The effect of different ratings of WTGS on CTI
error and the TDS for all OCR’s are taken as 2 s. between OCR-3 and OCR-4 and the enhancement in
coordination with application of hybrid SFCL is analyzed.
III. CASE STUDY WITH PROTECTIVE COORDINATION
Here the simulation results of 1MVA rating WTGS, with
and without hybrid SFCL is shown.
PROBLEM
The majority of distribution systems are operated in a A. Fault analysis without WTGS and hybrid SFCL
radial configuration, because of the simplicity of operation When a three phase short circuit fault occurs at 4 s the
and the economy of the over-current protection. The radial operating time for OCR-4 is observed to be 0.2725 s and for
distribution system with five buses fed from one end is OCR-3 is 0.4967 s giving an initial CTI of 0.2242 s
shown in Fig. 3, is used as a test system for the case study. considered as the original relay coordination setting between
Its line impedances are given in Table II. The system is OCR-4 and OCR-3. Response of line current in bus 4-5 is
protected by four coordinated over-current relays, which are shown in Fig.4.
from OCR-1 to OCR-4. A squirrel-cage rotor asynchronous
generator based WTGS is connected to the bus 3 with
capacitor C4 for reactive power compensation.
 INSTANTANEOUS CURRENT IN LINE-45 INSTANTANEOUS CURRENT IN LINE-45
<Untitled>
0.50 0.80
0.40
0.60
0.30
0.20 0.40
current (kA)

current (kA)
0.10 0.20
0.00
0.00
-0.10
-0.20
-0.20

-0.30 -0.40
-0.40
-0.60
sec 3.90 4.00 4.10 4.20 4.30 4.40 4.50 4.60 sec 3.90 4.00 4.10 4.20 4.30 4.40 4.50

(a) (b)
INSTANTANEOUS CURRENT IN LINE-45
<Untitled>
0.50 Fig.5. Instantaneous current in line 4-5 (a) when OCR-4 senses the fault
0.40 (b) when OCR-3 senses the fault
0.30
0.20
C. Fault analysis with WTGS of 1 MVA and with hybrid
current (kA)

0.10
0.00 SFCL
-0.10 With WTGS of 1 MVA rating and hybrid SFCL
-0.20
integrated together, the operating time for OCR-4 has
-0.30
-0.40
increased to 0.2595 s and OCR-3 to 0.4715 s, thus
sec 3.90 4.00 4.10 4.20 4.30 4.40 4.50 4.60 improving the CTI to 0.2120 s when compared with 0.2066
s without hybrid SFCL. Response of line current in bus 4-5
(b) is shown in Fig.6.
Fig.4. Instantaneous current in line 4-5 (a) when OCR-4 senses the fault INSTANTANEOUS CURRENT IN LINE-45
(b) when OCR-3 senses the fault
0.60

B. Fault analysis with WTGS of 1 MVA and without 0.40

hybrid SFCL 0.20

current (kA)

When the same fault mentioned in the last section is 0.00

applied with WTGS of 1 MVA rating, the operating time for -0.20

OCR-4 has reduced to 0.2577 s and for OCR-3 to 0.4643 s, -0.40

reducing the CTI to 0.2066 s when compared with 0.2242 s -0.60

without hybrid SFCL. Response of line current in bus 4-5 is sec 3.90 4.00 4.10 4.20 4.30 4.40 4.50

shown in Fig.5.
(a)
INSTANTANEOUS CURRENT IN LINE-45
INSTANTANEOUS CURRENT IN LINE-45
0.60
0.80
0.40
0.60
0.20
0.40
current (kA)

0.00
current (kA)

0.20
-0.20
0.00

-0.20 -0.40

-0.40 -0.60
sec 3.90 4.00 4.10 4.20 4.30 4.40 4.50
-0.60
sec 3.90 4.00 4.10 4.20 4.30 4.40 4.50
(b)
(a) Fig.6. Instantaneous current in line 4-5 (a) when OCR-4 senses the fault
(b) when OCR-3 senses the fault

The various operating conditions of hybrid SFCL is

shown in Fig 7. As shown in Fig. 7(c), when the fault
current reaches the critical current of the HTSC element, a
portion of the fault current starts to flow into the driving
coil. When the current flowing into the driving coil
approaches the set value of 2.5A, the BRK1a is operated.
The fault current starts to commutate from both the driving
coil and the HTSC element to the SB by closing BRK1a.
 HTSC element resistance
Resistance Vs Time
25.0

20.0

15.0
Resistane(ohm)

10.0

5.0

0.0

-5.0
Time 3.990 4.000 4.010 4.020 4.030 4.040 4.050 4.060

(a) Resistance variation of HSTC element of HSFCL

SFCL CURRENT CHARACTERISTIC WAVEFORMS
current in HTSC element current in breaking switch current in CLR
0.250
0.200
0.150 Fig.8. Relay characteristics with 1 MVA WTGS and HSFCL
0.100
current (kA)

0.050
0.000
After the two switches (BRK1a, BRK2a) are operated as
-0.050
described above, the breaking switch (BRK3a) in the current
-0.100 limiting part is opened and the fault current can be finally
-0.150 limited by the CLR. With the hybrid SFCL realized by the
sec 3.970 3.980 3.990 4.000 4.010 4.020 4.030 4.040 4.050
breakers which act as fast switches, as described above, the
protection coordination experiments of the OCRs in the
(b) Current through HTSC element, breaking switch, CLR
simulated power distribution system with the hybrid SFCL
was performed. Fig. 8 shows the improved CTI with the
Right after the switch BRK1a is closed, the switch BRK2a is
application of hybrid SFCL in the system.
ready for opening. Though the current flowing into the ROTAR SPEED
driving coil decreases, its root-mean-square (RMS) value 1.0200
rotar speed

continues to increase and when it reaches the setting value 1.0180

of 4A to open BRK2a, the HTSC element is separated from 1.0160

1.0140
the fault current by the opening BRK2a. 1.0120
speed (pu)

1.0100
1.0080
SFCL CURRENT CHARACTERISTIC WAVEFORMS
1.0060
current in HTSC element current in driving coil RMS current in driving coil
0.150 1.0040
1.0020
0.100
1.0000
sec 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0
0.050
current (kA)

0.000
(a)
-0.050 ROTOR SPEED
rotor speed
1.0250
-0.100
1.0200
-0.150
sec 3.970 3.980 3.990 4.000 4.010 4.020 4.030 4.040 1.0150
speed (pu)

1.0100

(c) Current waveforms of HTSC element and driving coil 1.0050

1.0000
Fig.7. Characteristic waveforms of Hybrid SFCL
0.9950
sec 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0

(b)

Fig.9. Rotor speed of WTGS of 1 MVA rating (a) without Hybrid SFCL
(b) with Hybrid SFCL
 INSTANTANEOUS CURRENT FROM INDUCTION GENERATOR Improvement in the CTI gives the opportunity to install
0.40 larger rating of WTGS integrated with HSFCL securing
0.30
back the protective coordination. This study also showed
0.20
how the HSFCL could improve the dynamic performance of
0.10
the WTGS under the fault condition. In practice, this study
curent (kA)

0.00
-0.10
could be used as a decision making guide for setting up a
-0.20 Hybrid SFCL to power grid with distributed generation.
-0.30
-0.40 VI. CONCLUSION
sec 3.90 4.00 4.10 4.20 4.30 4.40 4.50
This paper made a study to analyse the effect of Hybrid
SFCL on the electric power grid integrated with the WTGS.
(a)
INSTANANTANEOUS LINE CURRENT OF INDUCTION GENERATOR
It describes the effects of a Hybrid SFCL in improving the
0.250
CTI between the primary and back-up OCRs. The
0.200 simulation results shows that the Hybrid SFCL could
0.150 provide an effective solution in installing a large WTGS
0.100
0.050
under the tightly constrained conditions resulting from the
current (kA)

0.000 required protective relay coordination. This study also

-0.050
-0.100
-0.150
-0.200
-0.250
sec 3.90 4.00 4.10 4.20
(b)
Fig.10. Instantaneous current of WTGS of 1 MVA rating (a) without
Hybrid SFCL (b) with Hybrid SFCL
By incorporating HSFCL in the modelled system, apart
from the improvement in CTI (improves the relay
coordination), there is a decrease in rotor acceleration and
WTGS current as shown in Fig. 9 and Fig. 10 respectively.
This clearly shows the improvement in the dynamic
response of the induction machine.
V. COMPARISON OF RESULTS
In this section the overall comparison of the impact of
WTGS and HSFCL in the protection scheme of a
distribution system is presented. As mentioned earlier to
verify the proper coordination between the relay’s CTI is
taken as an index in this paper. Under various cases like
without and with WTGS and HSFCL are compared interms
of CTI in Table III. With WTGS of 1 MVA rating, without
HSFCL CTI between the OCR-4 and OCR-3 is decreased to
0.2066 s as compare to one without WTGS of CTI 0.2242 s
but the application of SFCL to the system has improved the
CTI to 0.2120 s which is nearer to the original relay
coordination setting of OCR-4 and OCR-3.
Table III Comparison of CTI
CASES
Without WTGS
With WTGS of 1 MVA rating
With WTGS of 1 MVA rating and
HSFCL
showed how the HSFCL could improve the dynamic
performance of the WTGS during fault conditions. The
remarkable reduction of the short-circuit current level by the
4.30 4.40 4.50
SFCL provides the main advantage to avoid changing the
ratings of multiple protective devices or their settings for
coordination with each other, which must be carried out
when the DG such as the WTGS is connected to the power
system. In practice, this study could be used as a decision-
making guide for setting up a Hybrid SFCL to power grid
with distributed generation.
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