Comparative Study of Relay Coordination in a Microgrid with the Determination of Common Optimal Settings Based on Different Objective Functions

This study aims to analyze the optimal settings of directional overcurrent relays (DOCRs) for the protection of an alternating current (AC) microgrid in both islanded and grid-connected operation modes. In this context, two different types of objective functions are used for comparing the total operating time of all primary DOCRs. The optimal settings obtained in either mode of the microgrid are different due to the variable magnitude of fault currents. The proposed protection coordination scheme is formulated as a mixed-integer non-linear programming problem, and the settings are obtained using various optimization techniques such as firefly algorithm, simulated annealing algorithm, and genetic algorithm. The results show that the settings obtained in common operation modes are robust as no miscoordination of relays occurs in any of the operation modes.