Performance of Interconnection Protection Based on Distance Relaying for Wind Power Distributed Generation

This paper proposes a method to analyze and improve the performance of interconnection protection based on distance relaying for wind power distributed generation (DG) in distribution systems. Of particular importance is distance protection that uses the concept of prefault voltages as reference quantities found to have issues with intermittent behavior of wind power DG. This concept is normally used in different distance protective relaying applications in order to increase the fault resistance coverage capability of the distance relays as well as to ensure selectivity, dependability, and security under extreme undervoltages. The main contributions of this paper are to analyze this issue and propose a method to enhance the performance of distance protection to mitigate this issue. In this methodology, several case studies are investigated with different penetration levels, weather patterns, and configuration topology of DGs under both normal operating conditions as well as fault conditions. Results for a case study are given.