Real-Time Hardware-in-The-Loop Implementation of Protection and Self-Healing of Microgrids

• Published in: IEEE transactions on industry applications Vol. 59; no. 1
• Main Authors: Gadde, Phani, Brahma, Sukumar, Patel, Trupal
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 19-10-2022
• Subjects: Distributed generation; ENGINEERING; HIL; IEC 61850; microgrid; protection
• ISSN: 0093-9994; 1939-9367

The design of a reliable protection scheme for microgrids often requires communication between protective devices and microgrid controllers. The authors have developed such a communication assisted scalable protection scheme with a self healing feature to protect a microgrid with 100% Inverter Based Resources (IBRs). The communication assisted scheme must be validated in real time with cyber physical co-simulation for successful demonstration. In this regard, the paper presents a co-simulation platform between a simulated power system model using RTDS and physical protective devices. The primary protection of the scheme is programmed in SEL 421-7 relay and backup protection is programmed in MATLAB on a generic computer acting as a microgrid controller. The IEC 61850 models are used to communicate between SEL-421-7 relay and RTDS, whereas TCP/IP communication connects the microgrid controller to RTDS. The paper’s focus is to demonstrate the co- simulation platform with communication links established using both protocols and validate the proposed scheme in real-time on the IEEE 123 node distribution feeder. The paper explains the configuration of the IEC 61850 and TCP/IP communications as the interface requires proper hardware and software setup. Furthermore, the real time performance indicates the Hardware In the Loop (HIL) framework as a competent testing environment for the developed protection scheme for microgrids.