Intelligent protection coordination restoration strategy for active distribution networks

Abstract Despite various advantages of integrating distributed generation (DG) units into distribution networks such as power loss reduction and voltage profile improvement, they may disrupt the performance of the conventional protection system due to bidirectional power flow and change of short‐circuit power. With the development of multi‐agent systems (MASs), intelligent protection schemes have been introduced that operate on the basis of data processing by a central controller. However, the possibility of communication failure and cyber attacks reduce reliability of these protection systems. To address this problem, this paper proposes an intelligent protection scheme that relies on peer‐to‐peer communication between agents in the first layer of the MAS. In the case of communication failure, the agents react to the fault condition by using the available data for similar conditions. The main advantages of the proposed scheme are reduction of number of employed agents by using only relay agents and no need for communicating with higher layers of MAS. Implementation of the proposed scheme in the ETAP simulation model of a 14 bus active distribution network shows that data exchange between relay agents properly modifies the operating time of the relays, resulting in protection coordination between main and backup protections.