Protection of Power Systems with High Penetration of Renewable Energy Generation

全球对迅速发展的气候变化的反应主要是可再生能源，特别是风能和太阳能发电的空前增长。风能和太阳能发电都通过具有先进控制和故障穿越能力的电力电子转换器连接到公用电网。在电网发生故障时，这些变换器将故障电流限制在几乎额定值的范围内，以保护半导体器件，这给依赖升高电流进行故障检测的网络保护器件带来了许多挑战。*******在配电层面，小规模可再生能源发电的互联将电网转变为主动配电系统。传统的过流保护在配电级的故障检测和判别能力受到故障电流贡献的限制。保护误操作、意外带电的隔离网段或孤岛的产生以及孤岛的不同步重连是其他一些问题。私有小型发电机高渗透有功配电网拓扑结构的不确定性是各种有功配电网自适应保护方案面临的重要挑战。*******大型风力和太阳能发电场在传输层面是相互连接的。风能和太阳能发电的故障电流贡献有限，往往需要使用更昂贵的通信辅助线路保护方案。然而，由于来自太阳能/风力发电厂的故障电流不能持续足够长的时间，后备保护可能会失效。转换器接口源对在许多功能中使用负序量的现代保护继电器的影响是一个值得关注的问题。保护工程师使用的传统保护协调软件无法准确捕捉变换器接口电源的故障电流行为。*******在这个研究项目中，我的目标是探索保护解决方案，促进可再生能源进入电网的高度渗透。我将特别研究使用时域保护技术和广域相量测量来实施自适应保护策略，利用深度学习和大数据分析的最新进展。实时实现和评估潜在解决方案的硬件在环测试将是研究的一个组成部分。我还将探讨用于保护协调的混合相量和时域分析工具的发展。研究结果将使继电器制造商和公用事业公司能够开发成本效益高的电网保护解决方案。参与研究计划的hqp将获得电力系统仿真、算法开发和继电器测试方面的专业知识，这些都是工业界高度寻求的技能。*********

The global response to rapidly unfolding climate change is dominated by an unprecedented growth in the use of renewable energy, especially wind and solar energy, for electricity generation. Both wind and solar generation is interconnected to utility grids through power electronics converters with advanced control and fault ride through capabilities. During grid faults, these converters limit fault currents almost to the rated value to protect semiconductor devices, causing many challenges for network protection devices that rely on elevated currents for fault detection.*******At the distribution level, interconnection of small-scale renewable generation transforms networks into active distribution systems. Limited fault current contribution hinder the fault detection and discriminating capabilities of traditional overcurrent protection used at the distribution level. False operation of protection, creation of unintentionally energized isolated network sections or islands, and unsynchronized reconnection of these islands are some other issues. Uncertainty in the topology of active distribution networks with high penetration of private owned small-scale generators is a crucial challenge for various adaptive protection solutions proposed for active distribution systems.*******Large-scale wind and solar farms are interconnected at the transmission level. Limited fault current contributions from wind and solar generation often necessitate the use of more expensive communication assisted line protection schemes. Still, backup protection may fail since the fault currents from solar/wind plants are not sustained over long enough period. The impact of converter interfaced sources on modern protective relays that use negative sequence quantities in many functions is a concern. Traditional protection coordination software used by protection engineers cannot accurately capture the fault current behaviour of converter interfaced generation.*******In this research program, I aim to explore protection solutions that facilitate high penetration of renewable energy resources into power networks. I will particularly investigate the use of time domain protection techniques and wide area phasor measurements for implementing adaptive protection strategies, capitalizing on the recent advances in deep learning and big data analytics. Real time implementation and hardware-in-loop testing for evaluating the potential solutions will be an integral part of the research. I will also explore the development of hybrid phasor and time domain analysis tools for protection coordination. The outcomes of the research will enable relay manufacturers and utilities to develop cost effective grid protection solutions. The HQPs participating in the research program will gain expertise in power system simulation, algorithm development, and relay testing, which are highly sought skills by the industry.*********