Improved Euclidean Distance Based Pilot Protection for Lines with Renewable Energy Sources

Unique fault behaviors of renewable energy sources (RESs) may lead to the misoperation of traditional pilot protection. To cope with this issue, this article proposes a new pilot protection method using the improved Euclidean distance. For normal operation or external faults, the currents on both ends are completely opposite, so the Euclidean distance of current absolute values on both ends is equal to 0. However, it will be much larger than 0 for internal faults because transient currents on both ends will have a big difference at this time. Therefore, internal and external faults can be detected reliably. In order to facilitate the setting calculation, the Euclidean distance is normalized, and a stability factor is introduced to avoid invalid calculation results. The proposed method can be applied to different RES types and different fault ride through strategies. Meanwhile, it can withstand larger fault resistance and noise interference. Compared with other methods using the RES fault currents, this approach can operate correctly without any additional criteria when the circuit breaker recloses on a permanent fault or RESs output a low power. PSCAD simulation and real-time digital simulator experiment verify this method.