Time-Domain Differential Protection Based on Operating and Restraining Trajectory Indices for Lines Connecting Battery Storage Energy Stations

Abstract

Battery energy storage stations (BESSs) pose several challenges for both phasor-based differential protection and the newly-proposed time-domain differential protection. These challenges include low sensitivity and even rejection. Besides, the negative impact of various nonideal conditions, including current transformer (CT) saturation, errors, and outliers, on the security of differential protection remains an important problem. Motivated by the aforementioned issues, this study accounts for the trajectory distribution discrepancy on Cartesian plane under various conditions and proposes a time-domain differential protection method. In this paper, the trajectory formed by operating and restraining current samples is developed. Subsequently, after considering different operating states, the fault severity levels, and nonideal conditions, the variances in trajectory distribution between internal and external faults are extensively analyzed. On this basis, the Cartesian plane is divided into operating, uncertainty, and restraining zones. Further, the operating and restraining trajectory indices are meticulously designed and a protection criterion based on these indices is formed to accurately separate internal faults from other events, unaffected by CT saturation, errors, and outliers. The exceptional performance of the proposed protection method is extensively validated through PSCAD simulations and a hardware-in-the-loop testing platform. Regarding the dependability, sensitivity, and security, the proposed protection method outperforms three state-of-the-art differential protection methods.