DC Microgrid Protection in the Presence of the Photovoltaic and Energy Storage Systems

Abstract

In recent years, most of the loads and distributed generations are connected to the AC grid through the power electronic converters. Using the DC grid beside the AC grid can reduce the conversion stages and power losses. Protection of the DC grids is a challenging issue because of the new structures of DC grids and fast transients of the DC faults. This paper studies the protection of the low voltage DC (LVDC) system in the presence of the photovoltaic (PV) and energy storage systems (ESS). An LVDC system consisting of a DC microgrid is considered and Different operating modes are analyzed. DC faults behavior and protection challenges are discussed for each mode through simulations employing MATLAB software. Finally, some methods are presented to solve the protection challenges. The results show that changing the protection arrangement of the system and choosing suitable control logics for the ESS and the PV prevent the unwanted outage of the loads and provide the possibility of the microgrid operation in islanded mode.