Verification of protective device coordination in distribution systems with photovoltaic generation

In this paper, an automated approach is presented to verify the impact of different levels of photovoltaic (PV) penetration on the protective device coordination in distribution systems. The approach is implemented on a detailed feeder modeled in OpenDSS. The feeder has been modeled using extensive geographic information system (GIS) data, with loads, PV output and substation voltage modeled using data from advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and data acquisition systems (DAS), as discussed in [1-2]. Starting from the feeder topology, an adjacency matrix is generated to find the coordinated protective devices during each possible fault in the feeder. The time-current curves (TCC) are created based on the types and ratings of the protective devices installed in the feeder to help classify whether coordination holds or not, under increasing penetration levels and varying locations of the PV system. The fuse-fuse coordination and fuse-recloser coordination during all types of possible faults are verified in this study. The approach implemented can also be utilized in other feeders to help verify the protective device coordination with and without PV penetration.