Although the distribution system has been structured as complicated as a mesh in the past, the connection points for each line are always kept open, so that it is operated as a radial distribution system (RDS). For RDS, the line utilization rate is determined according to the maximum load on the line, and the utilization rate is usually kept low. In addition, when a fault occurs in the RDS, a power outage of about 3 to 5 minutes occurs until the fault section is separated, and the healthy section is transferred to another line. To improve the disadvantages of the RDS, research on the construction of a networked distribution system (NDS) that linking multiple lines is in progress. Compared to the RDS, the NDS has advantages such as increased facility utilization, load leveling, self-healing, increased capacity connected to distributed generator, and resolution of terminal voltage drop. However, when a fault occurs in the network distribution system, fault current can flow in from all connected lines, and the direction of fault current varies depending on the fault point, so a high-precision fault current direction determination method and high-speed communication are required. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an accurate fault current direction determination method by comparing the peak value polarity of the fault current in the event of a fault, and a communication-based protection coordination method using this method.
This research was supported by Korea Electric Power Corporation under "Development of Networked distribution system(R20DA24)".
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