IEC 61850 GOOSE applications to distribution protection schemes

The industry is going through significant changes due to the increased requirements for improved quality of power supplied by the utility in order to avoid costly interruptions of manufacturing or other processes caused by voltage sags, swells or unbalanced conditions when a short circuit fault occurs in the distribution system. The paper discusses the requirements for reduction in the duration of different short circuit faults. The behavior of typical distribution feeder protection or substation protection systems is analyzed from the perspective of the definitions of voltage related power quality events. The use of IEC GOOSE in the development and implementation of distribution protection schemes is analyzed from the point of view of improvement in the performance of the distribution protection schemes and the reduction of the overall fault clearing time. The effect of changes of the system configuration on the performance of the protective relays is then analyzed. Multifunctional protective IEDs are then considered and it is demonstrated that by using all available protection and programmable logic functions combined with the exchange of GOOSE messages between different distribution protection IEDs, the user can significantly reduce the effect of short circuit faults on sensitive loads supplied from the distribution substation.