Traveling Wave Analysis in Microgrids

This chapter addresses the challenge of protecting microgrids using legacy ultra-high-speed traveling wave protection schemes, which are not suitable due to the microgrid’s unique topology and operating conditions. To overcome this challenge, the chapter proposes a new protection scheme that offers several key contributions. First, an improved filtering mechanism is introduced to prevent traveling wave superimposition. Second, an accurate fault location algorithm is presented, which only requires the time of arrival of the traveling waves, rather than raw sampled values. Third, the protection scheme uses current-only protection to avoid the poor transient response of the voltage transformers. The new architecture eliminates the need for high-bandwidth communication and complex computations, making it an ideal solution for protecting microgrids. Extensive testing on a real-world microgrid system confirms the ultra-high speed and high accuracy of the scheme in fault location, regardless of fault parameters or system operating conditions.