A statistics-based review of microgrid protection with a concentration on adaptive protection

Abstract

Microgrid (MG) is a system of production and distribution of electrical energy that can operate both in grid-connected and islanded modes. This capability leads to significant variations in the fault current level. Moreover, dynamic changes corresponding to the line outage contingencies or outages of the distributed generations (DGs) that are implemented for local generation in the MGs lead to the changes in the fault current level. These changes in the fault current level make some miscoordination between the overcurrent relays (OCRs) in the conventional protection schemes. To overcome this drawback, there is a need for an adaptive protection scheme that can adapt to both operational and dynamic changes and takes effective protection decisions accordingly. This paper first presents a statistic-based review of MG and its protection including total publications, type of publications, the ten most researchers, and the ten most sources. Finally, comprehensive remarks of the 30 most cited papers related to adaptive protection of MG are presented. This paper will help the researchers of the MG protection to learn the most desirable techniques and the concentration of studies in adaptive protection of MGs for future works.