The effect of fault current limiter size and type on current limitation in the presence of distributed generation

Authors: REZA MOHAMMADI CHABANLOO, EHSAN MOKHTARPOUR HABASHI, MEYSAM FARROKHIFAR

Abstract: One of the effective mitigation solutions of the problems due to the penetration of distributed generation (DG) into the distribution network is a fault current limiter (FCL). Main attention is given to designs for resistive and inductive FCLs and others should meet the same requirements. At first in this paper network analysis is used to determine a suitable type of limiting impedance of a FCL in a distribution network in the presence of DG and then a comparative study of resistive, inductive, and complex FCLs is conducted to show the effect of size and type of FCL on the amplitude and phase of DG and network fault current. To illustrate the impact of FCLs on relay coordination restoration, an optimization algorithm is used to determine the minimum size of FCL and subsequently the role of FCL impedance type on the coordination time interval of the main and backup relays in a sample IEEE typical distributed network is investigated. Simulations are carried out by programming in MATLAB and the obtained results are reported and discussed.

Keywords: Fault current limiter, power system protection, distributed generation

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