Overcurrent Protection Approaches to Improving Distribution Reliability

This paper considers several approaches to use overcurrent protection to improve distribution reliability. Having more protective devices that are properly coordinated assures that the fewest customers possible are interrupted and makes fault-finding easier. Fusing is an inexpensive way to isolate faults, and this paper describes some often-overlooked fusing considerations. Applications of fuse blowing and fuse saving are also considered. Reclosing practices can be optimized to limit impacts on customers. In addition, single-phase protective devices can also limit customer outage time by reducing the number of customers affected