Advanced distribution reclosing using wireless communications

A key smart grid solution that affects quality of electric service to rural electric cooperative customers is automatic distribution reclosing. Distribution reclosers offer rural electric cooperatives the benefit of isolating faults and minimizing the number of effected customers during a fault condition. Over the years, sequence coordination between upstream and downstream reclosers has for trip coordination. This paper will discuss using recloser controls with Ethernet communications and 900Mhz Ethernet radios to efficiently communicate to each other using peer-to-peer communications. Smart trip coordination and fault isolation will be discussed using this available communication technology.