Smartgrid Protection Principles with Advanced Communication & Control

It is an exciting time for power systems as there are many ground-breaking changes taking place simultaneously. There is global census in increasing the share of renewable energy-based generation in the overall generation mix and transitioning to a more environmental-friendly transportation with electric vehicles. Proliferation of renewable generation, storage devices and electric vehicles introduces unprecedented protection issues in smart grids. Existence of generation in distribution networks and bilateral power flow require extensive improvements in traditional protection schemes. To keep up with this fast-paced transformation, new protection systems should be versatile and flexible to accommodate different topologies and accept new deployments, respectively. To ensure interoperability between devices from different vendors, a common-information modeling approach, e.g. IEC61850 standard, is required. Use of standard logical nodes and communication makes it possible to install new protection schemes in smartgrids, integrate them with existing infrastructures and adjust to new deployments. Thanks to this standardized approach, plug-and-play concept can be achieved in smart grids.