Reverse Power Flow Protection in Grid Connected

PV Systems
Shahinur Rahman, Haneen Aburub, Masood Moghaddami, Arif I. Sarwat
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Florida International University, USA
Email: srahm026, haburub, mmogh003, asarwatg@fiu.edu

Abstract— Electricity demand is increasing day by day. To However, gradually, extension of power grid by inter-
satisfy this increasing demand, it is essential to expand power connection of DGs has led to some significant issues regarding
generation. One easy solution is to integrate distributed protection, reliability, stability and power quality. Among these
generation (DG) such as solar photovoltaic, wind energy to issues, protection aspect plays a massive role which requires a
electric power grid. The interconnection of DG with conventional
power network may cause many technological challenges. To
close attention by researchers. Interconnection of DG has a
provide proper power quality to consumer and ensure grid direct consequence on the short circuit current levels of the
performance stability, these problems should be identified and network. It may cause a rise in current magnitude during faults,
resolved. In this paper, a protection scheme against reverse power compared to the usual network operations [1]-[2], [16]. The
flow concerning PV integrated grid system are being discussed. increasing fault currents may cross the breaking capacity of
This paper aims to explore recourses to modify the existing circuit breakers (CB). Therefore, existing protective
protective schemes and investigate reverse power relay (RPR) instruments are exposed to more electrical pressure than
operation against bi-directional power flow to accommodate PV- before. The traditional power network was modeled to generate
DG in distribution networks. Reverse power flow scenario is power from a source, transmitted to different feeders, stepped-
observed in MATLAB/Simulink design of 100kW PV-DG
connected to grid and different operating conditions of
down at substations and distributed to consumers in a radial
distribution network are considered. The primary objective of fashion. If DG increasingly supply more power than the load
this research is to simulate a system that provides a solution to demands, excess power is fed back into substation and
avoid reverse power flow using RPR in the presence of a PV-DG transmission grid. This would not only create instability of the
resource on a distribution network. whole system, but also would result in over voltage on the
feeder, protection miscoordination, increasing fault currents,
Index Terms—Distributed Generator (DG), Reverse Power and incorrect operation of protective equipment [14]-[19].
Relay (RPR), Electric Energy Storage System (EESS), Electric
vehicle (EV)
To avoid reverse power flow, it is essential to find new
methods of decreasing the excess generated power by PV-DG
I. INTRODUCTION into distribution system. Various schemes are developed
against reverse power flow of grid-connected PV systems that
Distributed Generation (DG) is one of the recent, advanced are reported in [7]-[13]. Excess power generated by PV can
technologies that is given more attention all over the world for stock in Electric Energy Storage System (EESS) but they are
last few years [1]. Due to growing economic and environmental expensive, bulky in size and need regular maintenance. Electric
requirements inflicted on energy and power sector, renewable Vehicles can be used for storing the excess PV generation;
energy resources are continuously integrated in electric grid however availability of EV and charging capacity of EV’s
system. Solar photovoltaics (PV) is considered as one of the battery are considered a big challenge in that approach [7]-[8]-
principle and very irrepressible developing, environmental- [9]. Reverse power flow can be mitigated by storing excess
friendly energy sources [2]. Besides roof-top small installations power in Heat Pump Water Heater (HPWHs). Variable demand
(kilowatts power range), notable rise of photovoltaic of hot water at different seasons makes this strategy
installation is observed in large scale deployments (tens of MW questionable [10]. An Energy management system is described
power range). Since large scale PV connection has been in [11] to avoid reverse power flow but it requires complex
growing in last few years, technical challenges regarding to control system and expensive communication network.
penetration of this source into electric grid system need to be Combinatorial use of On Load Tap Changer (OLTC) and
investigated. The criteria of increasing DG interconnection power electronics devices can minimize effect of reverse power
with Electrical Power Systems has been published in the IEEE flow [12] but at the same time, produce harmonics due to
1547 Standard. Integration of DG in distributed power system switching operation of power electronics devices, hence power
has both positive and negative consequences. DG has the quality of the system degrades.
capability to decrease supply from power grid as well as to keep This paper gives an idea about protection scheme using
adverse environmental impact of power generation low and reverse power relay (RPR) against reverse power flow of grid
minimize circuit losses if connected near to the load side [1]. connected PV system which is simple and more reliable
technique for effective protection in small PV installation. By
This work is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. using RPR as a protective scheme not only protects the power
1553494. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations
system from damages due to reverse power flow, but also
expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect
the views of the National Science Foundation. provides continuous power to the load. To explore the problem
of reverse power flow for PV integrated grid systems, proper parallel. The manufacturer specifications for one module are
electric grid model of a distribution system has been prepared listed in Table I.
using MATLAB/Simulink simscape power system tool. Using
the configured model, reverse power flow and fault conditions
that may frequently happen in the power system have been
investigated. Two interesting cases are presented in the paper.
This work is divided into three sections. The Section II is
dedicated to the PV system modeling. The Section III explains
two case studies and discusses the simulation results. Finally,
Section IV concludes and summarizes the work.

II. DESIGN OF PV INTERCONNECTED GRID SYSTEM Fig. 2: Equivalent Circuit of a PV Cell.

Table I: Specifications of One Solar PV Module

The Photovoltaic technology consists primarily of three
major elements: PV module, DC-DC converter and Inverter
Series-connected cells Number 96
(DC-AC converter) (shown in Fig. 1). To get proper quality
Open circuit voltage (Voc) 64.2V
of power, L-C (low-pass) harmonic filter is employed to
Short circuit current (Isc) 5.96A
reduce THD factor. The gate pulse of DC-DC converter is
regulated using the Maximum Power Point Tracker (MPPT) Current and voltage at maximum Vmp=54.7 V
algorithm. power Imp=5.58A

A 5kHz DC-DC boost converter is employed to step-up

voltage from 273V DC (PV natural voltage at maximum
power) to 500V DC. Optimal switching duty cycle has been
achieved by a MPPT controller that regulates duty cycle
automatically to generate the required voltage to extract
maximum power. Maximum power fluctuates in accordance
with weather patterns and load profile which makes the
Fig. 1: Schematic Diagram of Full Photovoltaic Generation System extraction process a difficult task. Several algorithms such as
Connected with Grid Constant Voltage, Fixed Duty Cycle, Incremental Conductance
(IC) and Modified IC, Perturb and Observe (P&O) and
PV cells are arranged in series and/or parallel to form a PV Modified P&O, System Oscillation and Ripple Correlation
module. Equivalent circuit model of a PV cell is presented in methods for extracting maximum power have been suggested
Fig. 2. This model includes an ideal current source (IPH), shunt in recent publications. In this paper, Perturb and Observe
resistor (RP) and a diode, connected in parallel with IP H and a (P&O) method is used to extract maximum power as it proves
series resistor (RS). The current at output terminal of modeled to have the best performance after a careful comparison
PV module, IDC can be formulated by the equation below [2]: analysis [3]. A 1980Hz 3-level 3-phase Voltage Source
Converter (VSC) converts 500V DC link voltage to 260V AC
ೆವ಴ శೃೞ Ǥ಺ವ಴
ିଵ ௎ವ಴ ାோೞ Ǥூವ಴ at frequency equivalent to nominal grid frequency. To control
‫ܫ‬஽஼ = ܰ௉ .‫ܫ‬௉ு ൅  ܰ௉ Ǥ ‫ܫ‬ௌ (݁ ೌǤಿೞ Ǥೇ೅ ሻ െ firing signals of the inverter, Pulse Width Modulation (PWM)
ோು
……………………….. (1) method is employed. The VSC PWM system uses two
controllers: external controller manages DC link voltage and
where, NS is series connected solar modules number, Np is internal controller adjusts active and reactive current
parallel connected solar modules number, Is is cell saturation components.
current, IP H is a photo-generated current, a is diode constant,
Rs is series resistance, Rp is shunt resistance, VT is thermal I. SIMULATION ANALYSIS
voltage, UDC is the voltage across output terminals.
A 100kW Solar module is integrated to 25kV Grid using a
A grid connected PV system is designed using MAT- DC-DC Boost Converter and a three-level three-phase Voltage
LAB/Simulink software that delivers a maximum of 100kW Source Converter (discussed earlier section). 10kvar capacitor
power at 1000W/m2 sun irradiation. The photovoltaic power bank is connected to minimize harmonics, generated by VSC
characteristics is nonlinear which changes in accordance with switching action. PV system is connected to utility grid (25kV
solar irradiation and temperature variation. The PV array block distribution feeder with 120kV equivalent transmission
has two principle inputs- sun irradiation (W/m2) and system) with a 100kVA 260V/25kV three phase coupling
temperature (deg. C) that cause output power variation. The transformer. Fig. 3 shows details connection of system
irradiation and temperature variation are outlined by a Signal configuration, drawn in Simulink. To study reverse power flow
block Builder which is connected as PV input. The 100 kW PV protection scheme using reverse power relay from the prepared
plant comprises of 330 SunPower modules (SPR-305E-WHT- model, several simulations have been done and two interesting
D) that are arranged as 66 strings of 5 series, connected in disturbance scenarios are presented in the following
subsections.
 Fig. 3: Grid Connected PV System Model Drawn in MATLAB/Simulink.

the minimal fault current magnitude for which it would

activate, but not be active on usual load scenarios. The results
are presented in Fig. 8. First, OC3 relay trips and the Circuit
breaker has disconnected the load at about 1.0 seconds.
Because of this disconnection, PV plant begins to transfer all
generated power to grid through the connected bus and cause
reverse power flow. This situation should be taken into
consideration while designing protection scheme. RPR detects
reverse power flow and sends trip signal to CB. CB disconnects
Fig. 4: System Configuration for Case Study I PV from the PCC and stop flowing power into the upstream
network. Fig. 9 shows some transients in the grid power after
A. Case Study I: tripping of overcurrent relay (OC3). By providing this
protection scheme both grid and PV will be protected.
Single line diagram of a grid connected PV system and load
is represented in Fig. 4. It consists of a 100kW PV-DG,
attached to a 25kV grid through 100kVA 260V/25kV three
phase coupling transformer. In this investigation, different
impedances of load and irradiance variation are considered to
analyze reverse power flow to grid. With increasing irradiation,
the power output from the PV inverter is increased and become
larger than the load at about 1.0 seconds (showed in Fig. 5).
The rest of PV output power is started to flow into the upstream
network after meeting load demand and hence, cause reverse
power flow. During reverse power flow, RPR sends a trip
signal to Circuit Breaker (CB) and CB disconnects PV from the
point of common coupling (BUS 2). Grid alone continues to
supply power to the load (shown in Fig. 6). In these figure, 0
means the relay is in normal condition and has not tripped, and
1 means the relay has tripped due to unusual condition.

B. Case Study II:

Case II is for another interesting reverse power flow

situation of PV interconnected grid system. A three-phase fault
has been occurred near the load (showed in Fig. 7). Overcurrent
relay (OC3) connected to the load side, must detect the fault Fig. 5: Variation of Irradiation, PV output power, Load Power and Grid
and send the appropriate tripping signal to the circuit breaker Power waveform under Simulation Environment
to disconnect the load. The settings of OC3 relay must be below
Fig. 6: Variation of Irradiation, PV output power, Load Power, Grid Power Fig. 8: Variation of PV output power, Load Power, Grid Power, OC3 Relay
and RPR Signal waveform under Simulation Environment Signal and Fault Three Phase Load Current Waveform under Simulation
Environment

Fig. 7: System Configuration for Case Study II

II. CONCLUSION
Although electric power system, at present has been able to
withstand the existing low penetration level of PV
interconnections, additional protective measures will be
required to mitigate the negative effects of reverse power flow
with increasing penetration in the future. In this paper, a
protective scheme against reverse power flow of a grid
connected PV system using reverse power relay has been
discussed thoroughly. It has proven to detect reverse power
flow fed to substation and minimize its adverse effects on grid.
However, disconnection of PV from the grid causes a sudden
loss of generation from DG. There are lots of alternative
options available in the literature, although at present, there are
Fig. 9: Variation of PV output power, Load Power, Grid Power, OC3
questions about the cost and viability of all of these techniques. and RPR Signal waveform under Simulation Environment
In some cases, there is an obligatory for extension in order to
confirm their reliability for general and practical applications.
The protection scheme mentioned in this paper, is cheap,
simple and more reliable for small PV installations. It
disconnects PV-DG and provides power to the load to maintain
power quality in the bulk power system.
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