An Analytical Assessment of Feeder Overcurrent Protection With Large Penetration of Distributed Energy Resources

Emerging environmental awareness, government subsidies, and deferred utility investments have created an environment that favors the proliferation of distributed energy resources (DERs) in distribution systems. While beneficial, these DERs create operational challenges to the power utility, ranging from additional safety risks to unstable system operation. Among those, traditional feeder overcurrent protection can become desensitized due to the additional fault contribution output by DERs. In some cases, it may not be possible to protect the entire distribution line. This effect is introduced in this paper as the Apparent Effect, which accounts for the reduction in fault contribution from the substation. Its extent varies depending on the DER technology, i.e., synchronous, induction, doubly-fed induction generators, or inverter-based DERs. Substantial investment may be required to overcome this effect and maintain feeder protection dependability. This paper characterizes this issue analytically and suggests the application of system reconfigurations that can result in mitigating the problem.