Performance Comparison of Distance Protection Schemes for Shunt-FACTS Compensated Transmission Lines

This paper presents a comparative study of the performance of distance relays for transmission lines compensated by shunt connected flexible ac transmission system (FACTS) controllers/devices. The objective of this study is to evaluate the performance of various distance protection schemes on transmission lines with shunt-FACTS devices applied for midpoint voltage control. The impact of two types of shunt FACTS devices, static var compensator (SVC) and static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) on the transmission line distance protection schemes is studied for different fault types, fault locations and system conditions. The power system elements and the shunt-FACTS devices with their associated controllers are modeled using RSCAD/RTDS software. The results are based on the performance of commercial distance relays using a real time digital simulator (RTDS).