Genetic Algorithm-Based Optimization of Overcurrent Relay Coordination for Improved Protection of DFIG Operated Wind Farms

Rigorous protection of wind power plants is a critical aspect of the electrical power protection engineering. A proper protection scheme must be planned thoroughly while designing the wind plants to provide safeguarding for the power components in case of fault occurrence. One of the conventional protection apparatus is overcurrent relay (OCR), which is responsible for protecting power systems from impending faults. However, the operation time of OCRs is relatively long and accurate coordination between these relays is convoluted. Moreover, when a fault occurs in wind farm-based power system, several OCRs operate instead of a designated relay to that particular fault location, which could result in unnecessary power loss and disconnection of healthy feeders out of the plant. Therefore, this article proposes a novel genetic algorithm (GA)-based optimization technique for proper coordination of the OCRs in order to provide improved protection of the wind farms. The GA optimization technique has several advantages over other intelligent algorithms, such as high accuracy, fast response, and most importantly, it is capable of achieving optimal solutions considering nonlinear characteristics of OCRs. In this article, the improvement in protection of wind farm is achieved through optimizing the relay settings, reducing their operation time, time setting multiplier of each relay, improving the coordination between relays after implementation of IEC 60255-151:2009 standard. The developed algorithm is tested in simulation for a wind farm model under various fault conditions at random buses and the results are compared with the conventional nonlinear optimization method. It is found that the new approach achieves significant improvement in the operation of OCRs for the wind farm and drastically reduces the accumulative operation time of the relays.