Optimal directional digital overcurrent relays coordination and arc-flash hazard assessments in meshed networks

The article addresses the arc-flash hazard assessments combining the optimal coordination of digital overcurrent relays. A novel objective function is adopted to concurrently reduce the arc-flash hazards while adapting the optimal settings of directional overcurrent relays subjects to set of coordination constraints. The flower pollination algorithm (FPA) is applied to attain the target. The proposed FPA-based technique is employed to define three main parameters for the relay settings. The performance and value of the proposed FPA-based methodology are demonstrated on the 8-bus and 15-bus meshed networks with various fault scenarios. Comparisons with the other competitive algorithms and subsequent discussions validate its good performance. Efficacious attributes of the novel objective function are compared and highlighted over the traditional objective function commonly used by the other researchers reported in the literature. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.