Study on Residual Current Protective Strategy Based on Network

Residual current protective devices play an important role in electrical safety engineering. When dangerous residual current occurs, automatic disconnection of power supply can prevent dangerous residual currents which may cause burns, fires and electrocution. Discrimination protection is to ensure that only the faulty part of a circuit is de-energized by tripping of the protective device. Common residual current protective strategy includes vertical discrimination and horizontal discrimination. Meanwhile, smart elements have been added to electrical devices, such as intelligent control, communication, etc. Communications among the residual current devices become practical. This paper presents a novel residual current protective strategy based on network. Coordination mechanism is introduced into the strategy as well.