1
A New Protection Scheme for DC Microgrid using
Line Current Derivative
A. Meghwani, S. C. Srivastava, Member, IEEE, S. Chakrabarti, Member, IEEE
Abstract—Protection scheme for AC transmission systems are
well understood and matured. On the other hand, DC system is
still facing a challenge in developing proper protection scheme
because of its natural characteristics. A protection scheme,
which utilizes some of the developed techniques for AC system,
and modified to suit the DC system characteristics, is proposed
in this paper. The scheme is based on the concept of DC current
profile under transients, which depends on the fault location.
This property is combined with the directional feature to achieve
the protection of a DC microgrid. The proposed scheme is
demonstrated on the ring type DC microgrid system, which is
able to detect the fault in the DC system, and also ensure its
backup protection. The proposed concept is verified and tested
through MATLAB/Simulink simulations.
Index Terms - DC Microgrid, system protection, fault current.
I. I NTRODUCTION
A low or medium voltage electrical network, consisting of
distributed resources, especially renewable sources of energy,
storage devices, and loads, is known as a Microgrid [1]. The
electrical network can be AC, DC, or mixed, and may or may
not be connected to the main grid. DC distribution network has
advantage of high efficiency [2], easy paralleling of sources
on DC bus [3], and more power transfer capacity [4].
One of the main challenge in adopting the DC distribution
system is the lack of effective solution to the fault protection.
Protection system includes protective devices such as fuses,
circuit breakers, load break switches, and relays. DC microgrid
may consist of Voltage Source Converters (VSCs) in the
network, which demand high speed protection and isolation
from the faulted network. Because of the presence of large
DC capacitors and low impedance offered by the DC cable, a
fault in the DC system may result into high transient currents
and voltages. The protection system should have the so-called,
4S property viz, selectivity, sensitivity, security and speed [5].
It should also provide redundancy and dependability at the
minimal cost.
A protection scheme based on handshake signal method
for Multi Terminal DC (MTDC) system is reported in [6].
In this scheme, as the fault is detected, all the VSCs are
disconnected from the AC side, and the capacitors on the DC
side support the load for short duration. As the system de-
energises, the load is dropped during the fault, which is not a
desired situation.
Reference [7] studied the application of different system
parameters such as, over current, under voltage, di/dt, dv/dt
A Meghwani (e-mail:anjum@iitk.ac.in), S.C. Srivastava
mail:scs@iitk.ac.in) and S.Chakrabarti (e-mail:saikatc@iitk.ac.in), are with
the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur, 208016.
978-1-4673-8040-9/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
during faults. The results illustrate that the peak magnitude
and the time of peak for the rate of change of fault current
is the same for over and under damped fault conditions. This
implies that the response is less dependent on the fault type,
and makes fault discrimination difficult.
Reference [8] had investigated a range of protection so-
lutions and reported that the differential current scheme is
suitable for the DC system. Differential protection has highest
selectivity, and only operates in case of internal fault. Its
operation would not be affected by size and rating of the
system components. But it requires a reliable communication
channel for instantaneous data transfer between the terminals
of the protected element. Because of chances to possible
communication failure, differential protection will require a
separate backup protection scheme. This increases the total
cost and size of the protection system, and limits its application
in microgrids.
The concept of smart grid and microgrid requires sensors
and communication networks to be provided in order to
monitor the system condition and avoid outages. The com-
munication may not be critical for monitoring functions, but
if it is used for protection, and if fails it may result into
system shutdown. Therefore, this paper proposes a scheme
with primary and secondary protection based local measured
system parameter characteristics that does not require any
communication channel. To increase the system reliability and
robustness, backup protection is also developed without using
any communication channel.
A mathematical analysis is presented in this paper to de-
termine the parameters of the fault current derivative, such as
the peak magnitude and time of peak in terms of network pa-
rameter. A protection system design framework is developed,
which provides fault discrimination and fast operating speed.
The proposed scheme is tested on a typical DC microgrid
architecture.
II. S YSTEM C ONFIGURATION
A loop type DC micro grid system is considered for
designing the protection system, as shown in Fig. 1. The
loop type configuration is more robust and reliable under fault
condition [9]. Efficiency of this system is high, especially for
small length of interconnected cables . The system consists of
the following elements:
• Non deterministic generation: Sources with a non pre-
dictive generation, includes solar Photo Voltaic (PV)
(e- connected through a DC-DC converter, and wind tur-
bine using Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator
(PMSG) connected through a VSC. Both the converters
 2

PD PD PD 2 0
PD 1.2 Cable 2.1 2

i (t) (pu)
1 1 Grid
DC-DC −0.2
VSC
i12

12
C F PD
Grid
Solar Panel 1 2.2 −0.4
PD 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
1.1
0.5
F

i (t) (pu)
5 i23 0
Cable Cable
i51

23
F −0.5
2 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
PD 0.5
PD 3.1 3

i (t) (pu)
5 5.2 PD 3
PD 5 DC DC 0
PD

34
Load 3.2
F −0.5
4 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
PD i34
5.1 i45 F
3

i (t) (pu)
Battery 0.6
Cable Cable
0.4

45
PD 0.2
PD 4.1 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
PD: Protective Device 4.2
0

i (t) (pu)
4
PD 4
−0.5

51
Wind
Wind
Turbine −1
VSC 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
1.2

Voltage (pu)
Fig. 1. DC Microgrid Architecture 1

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6

Time (secs)
TABLE I
R ATING OF DC M ICROGRID C OMPONENTS
DC Grid Voltage 1200 V Fig. 2. Line currents during load and wind speed variations.
Base Power 2 MW
Battery DC-DC Converter 0.5 MW (pu)
0.4
Battery 300V, 1.3kAh, Nickel Cadmium 0.2
Grid

PV Converter 0.5 MW 0
P

Solar Panel Vmp = 54.7, Imp =5.58 at STC −0.2

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Grid VSC 1 MW 0.2
Wind Turbine 2 MW, PMSG
(pu)

Cable Resistance 10 mΩ per Km 0

Batt

Cable Inductance 100 μH per Km

P

Filter Capacitor, C 25 mF −0.2

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Load Constant impedance load 2 MW
0.8
PWind (pu)

0.6
work on the principle of maximum power point tracking 0.4
from the sources. 0.2
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
• Deterministic generation: Either diesel generator or grid
of limited capacity connected through VSC is used as a 0.4
(pu)

0.3
deterministic source.
PV

0.2
P

• Loads: Constant resistance type of DC loads are used in 0.1

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6

this system 1.5

PLoad (pu)

• Energy storage system: To take care of load and gener- 1

0.5
ation unbalance, energy storage system is used. In this
0
work, Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) has been 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6
Time (s)
considered, which is connected through a bi-directional
DC-DC converter. Fig. 3. Power delivered by sources with load and wind speed variations.
The DC bus voltage is controlled by grid-VSC in grid
connected mode or by battery converter in islanded mode [10]. ize the scheme, a small section of the DC network during fault
The power and component ratings of all the modules are given is considered in Fig. 4a for example fault F1 . A short circuit
in Table I [11]. Fig. 2 shows the current flow in various line in the DC system may results into high fault current due to
sections during normal operating condition. Power delivered the presence of charged capacitors and low impedance offered
by sources connected to system with load and wind speed by the cable. The severity of the fault increases as the DC bus
variations is shown in Fig. 3. In this system, all converter voltage level increases and/or cable length reduces. During
topologies incorporate protection of IGBTs but not the diodes. fault, the current response of the equivalent RLC circuit, as
In such a case, if a fault on DC bus is not cleared within 2 shown in Fig. 4b, is expressed as, [12],
ms [3], then freewheeling diodes and other sensitive network
components may get damaged. vC (0)/L + iL (0)s
i(s) = (1)
III. S YSTEM A NALYSIS D URING FAULT s2 + R 1
L s + LC

In this section, analytical expressions of fault on DC bus where iL (0) and vC (0) are the current through the inductor
[12] are used to depict the response of the system. To general- and voltage across the capacitor respectively, just before occur-
 3

Here, Δi = ik − ik−1 and Δt = tk − tk−1 , ik is sampled

r L r L
at time tk and ik−1 at tk−1 . ik−1 and ik are the present and
iL RF iL RF one-sample-delay current values. The protective device PD is
VSC vC vC activated once Δi reaches a threshold value.
Fault Fault
IV. P ROPOSED P ROTECTION S YSTEM D ESIGN
(a) (b) A high speed differential current protection was proposed
in [13], where central processing unit was used for fast assess-
Fig. 4. Faulted network section and its RLC equivalent circuit
ment of the fault. This requires communication channel that
introduces a risk of single point of failure. It is desirable that
rence of the fault. R is the series equivalent of fault resistance the protection system should be fast, sensitive and selective to
RF and r. L and r are the equivalent series inductance and faults. From (7) one can observe that the Δi depends upon L,
resistance of the cable upto the fault point. In this expression, which is the cable parameter and solely depends on the fault
the converter current contribution to the fault is assumed to location. This property can be combined with the directional
be negligible because of the slow response of the converter feature to achieve a localized fault detection technique.
controllers. In time domain, the fault current i(t) can be written
Secondary Protection Zone Primary Protection Zone
as,
2
vC (0)
i(t) = [e−p1 t − e−p2 t ] F5 PD 1
L(p2 − p1 ) 1.1 PD
1.2 F1 PD
2.1
(2)
iL (0)
+ [−p1 e−p1 t + p2 e−p2 t ] Time to Trip
p2 − p 1
where, p1 & p2 are the poles of (1), and are given by, TS
 
R R
2
1 TP
p1 , p2 = ± − (3)
2L 2L LC
'i 'is 0 'i p 'i
Depending upon whether 1/LC is greater, equal or less than
(R/2L)2 , the values of p1 and p2 will be real or complex. Fig. 5. Non-Directional characteristics of P D1.2
From (2), di/dt can be determined as,
di vC (0)
= [−p1 e−p1 t + p2 e−p2 t ] A. Protective Device (PD)
dt L(p2 − p1 )
(4) In Fig. 1, the PD consists of a digital relay, which gives trip
iL (0) 2 −p1 t
+ [p p − p22 e−p2 t ] signal to a circuit breaker in case of a fault. Digital relays are
p2 − p 1 1
equipped with microcontroller for setting thresholds, and ana-
Immediately after the fault at t = 0, the magnitude of di/dt log to digital converters to transform the analog measurements
will be given by the following equation. to digital form. The difference between the present and the
di vC (0) previous sampled current, Δi, is compared with the threshold
| |= − iL (0)(p1 + p2 ) (5) setting to generate a trip signal.
dt L
The DC cables are protected by PDs connected on both
For RF = 0, R is equal to the equivalent cable resistance
the ends as shown in Fig.1, and provided with the inter
upto fault point denoted by r. In this case (R/2L)2 is less
trip circuits. In case a PD trips on sensing of fault through
than 1/LC and hence, p1 and p2 will be complex conjugate
relays, the other side breaker is also tripped on “follow-me”
and only real part contribute to fault current. Therefore, the
instruction [5].
contribution of the second term, compared to the first in above
equation, to di/dt magnitude will be negligible, and only the B. Pickup Threshold Settings
first term may be considered. Therefore (5) reduces to the
following equation. To calculate the threshold setting, the protection scheme is
divided into two parts, primary and secondary (backup). For
Δi vC (0) primary protection, the relay should pickup with definite time
|=| (6)
Δt L delay of TP , while for secondary protection it will pickup
As L changes with the length of line considered, the mag- at TS as shown in Fig. 5. The secondary protection will act
nitude of di/dt, found by using (6) depends on the location of only if the primary protection fails to respond. The threshold
the fault. This characteristics of di/dt during fault is utilized settings for the primary protection are calculated based on the
to design the protection system. equivalent circuit considered from the relay position upto the
For time Δt, immediately after the fault, at kth sampling fault point. The minimum pickup threshold, ΔiP , for P D1.2
period, Δi is written as follows. is determined by considering the fault F1 , close to P D2.1
vC (0) i.e., at 100 % line length. If fault occurs close to P D1.2 , Δi
Δi = Δt (7) magnitude will be maximum.
L
 4

TABLE II 20

i (t) (pu)
P ICKUP T HRESHOLD S ETTINGS FOR P Dx.2 10
0

12
−10
P Dx.2 Fault ΔiP Primary ΔiS secondary 1.995 2 2.005 2.01 2.015 2.02
10
location Protection protection

i (t) (pu)
0
from Threshold (Amp) Threshold (Amp) −10
P Dx.2 (m)

23
−20
P D1.2 1000 600 -200 1.995
5
2 2.005 2.01 2.015 2.02

P D2.2 500 1028 -600

i34(t) (pu)
0
P D3.2 200 1500 -700 −5
P D4.2 300 1420 -300 −10
1.995 2 2.005 2.01 2.015 2.02
P D5.2 1000 766 -100 5

i45(t) (pu)
0
TABLE III
P ICKUP T HRESHOLD S ETTINGS FOR P Dx.1 −5
1.995 2 2.005 2.01 2.015 2.02
4

i51(t) (pu)
P Dx.1 Fault Inter trip with ΔiS Pickup 2
0
location P Dx.2 threshold setting
−2
from (Amp) 1.995 2 2.005 2.01 2.015 2.02
P Dx.1 (m) 1

Voltage (pu)
0.5
P D1.1 1000 P D5.2 150 0
P D2.1 500 P D1.2 250 −0.5
P D3.1 200 P D2.2 600 1.995 2 2.005 2.01 2.015 2.02
Time (secs)
P D4.1 300 P D3.2 800
P D5.1 1000 P D4.2 300
Fig. 6. Line currents and bus voltage response for fault F1 occurred at t = 2s.

1) Pickup Threshold Settings for P Dx.2 : If the primary B. Backup Protection

protection fails, then the secondary protection should act. In
this scheme, the relay in the line adjacent to the faulted line
provides the backup either in the positive direction or in the
reverse direction. For example if P D1.1 fails to operate as
primary protection for fault F5 , P D1.2 will provide a backup.
Therefore, P D1.2 should be programmed for non directional
characteristics with different pick up thresholds. Table II shows
the primary protection threshold settings for P Dx.2 , where x
varies from 1 to 5.
2) Pickup Threshold Settings for P Dx.1 : On similar con-
cept, if P D2.2 fails to operate for fault F2 , P D2.1 will act as
a backup. Hence, P D2.1 is set for secondary protection with
definite time delay of TS . The pickup threshold settings of
P Dx.1 relays are summarized in Table III.
C. Definite Time Delay Setting
Primary protection for forward direction faults (F1 to F5 )
are activated with definite time delay of TP . For secondary
protection, a constant time delay in addition to TP is provided
to trip at TS . In this scheme, the inverse time characteristic
is not desirable, because a delay in protection may cause
severe damage to the system and its components, especially
the converters.
V. P ROTECTION D EVICE C OORDINATION
A. Primary Protection
To achieve coordination among all protective devices (PDs),
it is essential that all the devices act quickly for faults in their
respective zones. For fault F1 , Δi is calculated and compared
with ΔiP , which generate a trip signal at TP , for P D1.2 ,
along with a “follow-me” instruction for P D2.1 to isolate the
faulted cable. Similarly, for fault at F2 , P D2.2 should act with
“follow-me” instruction for P D3.1 , and so on.
In case P D1.2 fails, P D1.1 acts as a backup by comparing
Δi with ΔiS . And if P D2.1 fails, P D2.2 acts as backup. All
secondary zones of protection activate at definite time delay of
TS and pickup only when the computed difference is greater
than the threshold.
P Dx.2 settings should be such that it provide trip under
forward directional current derivative as primary and negative
threshold setting for secondary, with time discrimination. Non
directional characteristic of P Dx.2 is shown in Fig. 5.
Similarly, P Dx.1 should operate on “follow-me” instruction
for primary zone of protection and positive pickup threshold
setting for secondary resembles the characteristics of direc-
tional relay. P Dx which is connected between the source
and the bus, activate with the backup protection only, and in
coordination with P Dx.1 .
VI. S IMULATION R ESULTS AND O BSERVATIONS
To demonstrate the proposed protection scheme, fault F1
in Fig. 1 is simulated at t = 2s. As shown in Fig. 6, high
transient currents cause a voltage collapse within 5 ms of the
fault occurrence. This implies that the protection required for
the DC system should be much faster as compared to the
AC system [3]. The line currents are sampled and monitored
continuously. As the fault F1 takes place, Δi12 is calculated
from sampled current, and compared with the threshold given
in Table II, to generate the trip signal. P D1.2 and P D2.1
operate and disconnect the faulted line within TP of 200 μs,
thereby restoring the system, as shown in Fig. 7.
With the primary protection, only selective part of the
system is disconnected and as a result, the rest of the system
is rescued successfully. The current Δi12 merely reaches to
0.5 pu, which implies that the converters and other system
components are protected. The DC bus voltage momentarily
drops to 0.7 pu because of high di/dt during fault, and restore
back to 1 pu as fault clears.
 5

i12(t) (pu) 0.5

But because of backup, the system is partially recovered and
0
system continue to operate at 0.9 pu, as shown in Fig. 8.
−0.5
1.995 2 2.005 2.01 2.015 2.02
1 VII. C ONCLUSION
i23(t) (pu)

0 The design of an effective protection system solution for a

−1
1.995 2 2.005 2.01 2.015 2.02
DC microgrid has been proposed in this paper. The natural
1 characteristics of the fault current derivative, in the DC net-
i34(t) (pu)

0.5
0
works has been analyzed, and used to develop the protection
−0.5
1.995 2 2.005 2.01 2.015 2.02
algorithm. Thresholds, which depend on the fault location,
1 have been calculated for all the line sections considering the
i45(t) (pu)

0.5 equivalent circuit upto the fault point and, compared with the
0
1.995 2 2.005 2.01 2.015 2.02
actual values. A protection solution for loop type DC micro-
0 grid system is demonstrated, which is easy to be extended
i51(t) (pu)

−0.5 to other configurations. The scheme is fast in detecting and

−1
1.995 2 2.005 2.01 2.015 2.02
isolating the faulty section through primary protection. It is
able to provide the backup protection successfully under the
Voltage (pu)

failure of the primary protective relays. The proposed scheme

0.5
1.995 2 2.005 2.01 2.015 2.02
is verified and tested on the MATLAB/Simulink simulations.
Time (secs)

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Fig. 7. Line currents after fault F1 is cleared by P D1.2 and P D2.1 act as
primary protection at TP = 200 μs. The authors would like to thank the Department of Science
and Technology, New Delhi, India for providing financial
4
support to carry out this research work under project no.
i12(t) (pu)

0
DST/EE/20100258.
1.995 2 2.005 2.01 2.015 2.02
1
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i23(t) (pu)

0
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−1
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i34(t) (pu)

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0
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−0.5
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1
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0
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0.9
0.8
0.7
1.995 2 2.005 2.01 2.015 2.02
Time (secs)
Fig. 8. Line currents after fault F1 is cleared by P D1.1 as backup protection
on failure of P D1.2 at TS = 500 μs.
The system is tested for backup protection also. It is
assumed that P D1.2 fails to operate for fault F1 . Hence, P D1.1
has to provide the backup, and restore the system back to the
normal condition. From Fig. 8, it is observed that, because of
the definite time delay TS of 500 μs in the backup protection,
the current i12 reaches to 3 pu. This delay in protection keeps
the bus voltage to 0.8 pu for 500 μs and recovers back to 0.9
pu as the fault clears.
Other observations with the result is that, after the fault
clearance, line current i51 reduces to zero. This implies that,
when the secondary protection acts, solar PV source is not able
to supply the power to the load because of activation of P D1.1 .
The primary protection failure will causes load shedding.
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