Electrical Power and Energy Systems 94 (2018) 234–244

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Electrical Power and Energy Systems

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijepes

A novel adaptive distance protection scheme for DFIG wind farm

collector lines
Jing Ma a,b,⇑, Weibo Zhang a, Jing Liu a, James S. Thorp b
a
State Key Laboratory of Alternate Electrical Power System with Renewable Energy Sources, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
b
Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In view of the sensitivity and selectivity problems in DFIG (doubly-fed induction generator) wind farm
Received 7 December 2016 collector line protection, a new adaptive distance protection scheme is proposed. First, according to
Received in revised form 8 June 2017 the geometric distribution characteristics of the collector line voltage and current, the equation of voltage
Accepted 17 July 2017
drop from the relaying point to the fault point is established and the adaptive setting coefficient is cal-
culated. On this basis, a new adaptive distance protection criterion is formed according to the phase rela-
tionship between the fault current and the measured current. Wind farm simulation tests on RTDS verify
Keywords:
that, the proposed method is well adaptable to different operation modes, strongly immune to the fault
Wind farm
Collector system
resistance and unaffected by the weak feed characteristics of the wind generator collector system.
Adaptive distance protection Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Fault resistance

1. Introduction In recent years, there are excellent propositions for adaptive

With the large-scale access of wind power into the grid, wind
farm relay protection has received more and more attention.
Currently, study is mainly focused on the protection of wind farm
high-voltage sending lines [1–14], and research on the protection
of wind farm low-voltage collector lines is relatively rare
[15–20]. In fact, the probability of fault occurrence on the collector
lines is higher than the probability of fault occurrence on the high-
voltage sending lines. And without proper treatment, collector line
fault will probably cause multiple wind farms to trip off the grid.
Therefore, it is of great importance to study in depth the protection
of wind farm collector lines and propose a feasible protection
scheme, so that the safety and stability of the power grid can be
guaranteed. The traditional relay protection is always equipped
with single-ended protection component at the bus-side of the col-
lector line, mostly two-stage current protection. But the two-stage
current protection installed on the collector line generally does not
have selectivity [21]. When a fault occurs on the high-voltage side
of one box transformer, the two-stage current protection will over-
ride trip and enlarge the fault range, because the step one of the
two-stage current protection cannot judge whether the fault
occurs on the collector line or the high-voltage side of the box
transformer.
⇑ Corresponding author at: No. 52 Mailbox, North China Electric Power Univer-
sity, No. 2 Beinong Road, Changping District, Beijing 102206, China.
E-mail address: hdmajing@ncepu.edu.cn (J. Ma).
distance relaying available in literature without wind farm. Ref.
[22] establishes the protection scheme from the perspective of
eliminating the effect of fault resistance on the measured impe-
dance. By compensating for the fault supplementary impedance
caused by fault resistance, the measured impedance could accu-
rately reflect the impedance from the fault point to the relaying
point. In Ref. [23], the actual fault location is calculated first, and
then it is determined whether the fault location falls in the protec-
tion setting range, so that in-zone faults could be identified. Ref.
[24] calculates the line fault impedance by constructing an
artificial neural network. Ref. [25] establishes a digital distance
protection scheme by comparing the measured impedances of dif-
ferent phases. Ref. [26] presents an extreme learning machine
based fast and accurate adaptive distance relaying scheme for
transmission lines in the presence of a static synchronous series
compensator. An algorithm by combining resistance magnitude
and volt-ampere characteristics of fault resistances for fault cause
identification has been proposed in Refs. [27]. A new digital dis-
tance relaying algorithm is presented for the compensation of
errors produced by the conventional digital distance relay during
a high-resistance single line-to-ground fault in Ref. [28]. And only
a few literatures have conducted research on the protection of
wind farm collector lines. Ref. [15] studied the internal faults of
multi-terminal dc wind farm collection grid in detail, and put for-
ward a new protection scheme that use the dc-link voltage change
to separate ac fault from dc faults and fault over-current for
fault-type identification and detection, in which the radial wind

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijepes.2017.07.008
0142-0615/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 J. Ma et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 94 (2018) 234–244
farm topology with star or string connection is considered. Ref.
[16] proposed a protection relay scheme for wind farms, which
provides short-circuit protection for a medium-voltage collection
circuit and the medium-voltage (MV) and low-voltage (LV) wind-
ings of the generator-transformers connected to it. Ref. [17] pro-
vides a new approach of capturing adaptively the dominant
transient frequency band based on amplitude-frequency analysis
to judge the state of lines. In Refs. [18,19], a new current-voltage
protection scheme and an adaptive current quick protection
scheme for wind farm collector lines are proposed respectively,
both of which consider the polymorphism of wind generator short
circuit current, and could meet the requirement of LVRT operation.
However, in the above protection schemes, some simplify the wind
generator collector system as load or synchronous generator, some
require real-time synchronous data, some do not consider the
influence of wind generator crowbar protection, others do not
install protection on the collector system side, thus when fault
occurs on collector lines, the wind farm side will not be able to iso-
late the fault lines effectively.
In view of the above problems, a new adaptive distance protec-
tion scheme for DFIG (doubly-fed induction generator) wind farm
collector lines is proposed in this paper. First, according to the geo-
metric distribution characteristics of wind farm collector line volt-
age and current, the equation of voltage drop from the relaying
point to the fault point is established and the adaptive setting coef-
ficient is calculated. And then, the adaptive distance protection cri-
terion is formed according to the phase relationship between the
fault current and the measured current. Since the voltage drop
equation is not related with the fault resistance, the influence of
fault resistance on adaptive distance protection criterion can be
totally eliminated. Wind farm simulation tests on RTDS verify the
correctness and effectiveness of the proposed method.
2. Adaptive distance protection scheme for wind farm collector
lines
2.1. Problems in protection configuration of wind farm collector lines
In the wind farm, the wind generator collector system will par-
allel the high-voltage sides of the step-up transformers of 5–10
adjacent generators with a cable, and then transmit them via a
10 kV or 35 kV collector line to the wind farm step-up substation.
The problems in current wind farm collector line protection are
listed below.
(1) Poor selectivity. Due to the weak feed characteristics of wind
generator, the proportion of positive and negative sequence
Fig. 1. Wind farm main wiring diagram and relay protection configuration.
235
components is much smaller than the proportion of zero
sequence component in the collector system side short cir-
cuit current. Thus traditional distance protection may oper-
ate incorrectly. Meanwhile, since the lengths of the collector
lines differ from one another, it is not easy for the setting
values of line distance protection to cooperate with each
other, thus poor selectivity may result.
(2) Low sensitivity. The wind farm collector lines are grounded
via resistance or arc suppression coil [29,30]. When fault
occurs, the fault resistance will greatly affect the operation
performance of distance protection.
Based on the above analysis, it is difficult for wind farm collec-
tor line protection to clear the fault fast and accurately. Therefore,
it is necessary to study new protection schemes to guarantee the
safe operation of wind farm and power grid.
2.2. Adaptive distance protection configuration of wind farm collector
lines
The main wiring and relay protection configuration diagram of
wind farm is shown in Fig. 1. As can be seen, the high-voltage sides
of the box transformers of 3–8 wind generators are paralleled
(according to the principle of proximity), and then via a 35 kV col-
lector line they are transmitted to the step-up substation. In the
step-up substation, the collected power is boosted to 110 kV (or
220 kV), and then connected to power system.
When fault occurs on the collector line of the wind farm shown
in Fig. 1, the distance protection analysis model as shown in Fig. 2
can be established. In Fig. 2, M is the collector system side, the
equivalent system voltage being E_ S ; N is the grid side, the equiva-
lent system voltage being E_ R . The equivalent system impedance of
each side is ZS and ZR respectively. Take the protection on the col-
lector system side for example, the protection setting range is MP,
setting value is Zset. F is the fault point, and Z is the positive
sequence impedance of the line length from fault point to the
relaying point.
In Fig. 1, the left side of the collector line is the wind generator,
and the right side is the schematic diagram of its integration to the
high-voltage power system via electrical devices such as the step-
up transformer and out-going lines. To facilitate analysis, Fig. 2
replaces the wind generators on the left side of the collector line
in Fig. 1 with an equivalent voltage source in series connection
with an equivalent impedance, and the right side of the collector
line in Fig. 2 is the power system which consists of the 330 kV
power system in Fig. 1 and transmission line and boost transformer
and 35 kV bus.
236 J. Ma et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 94 (2018) 234–244

When fault occurs on the collector line, the measured voltage

U_ m and measured current I_m at the relaying point meet the follow-
ing equation:

U_ m ¼ I_m Z þ U_ f ð1Þ

where U_ f is the voltage at the fault point.

Divide both sides of (1) by I_m , so that the measured impedance
at the relaying point Zm can be gained:

U_ f I_f Rg
Zm ¼ Z þ ¼Zþ ð2Þ
_Im I_m

where I_f is the short circuit current and Rg is the fault resistance.
According to (2), the measured impedance Zm is composed of the
actual fault impedance Z and the supplementary impedance
I_f Rg =I_ m caused by fault resistance. This supplementary impedance
may cause traditional distance protection to mal-operate. Fig. 3. Voltage and current phasor diagram when fault occurs on wind farm
collector lines.
When fault occurs on the collector line, the voltage and current
phasor diagram is shown in Fig. 3. U_ Mj0j , U_ Nj0j and U_ f j0j are the volt-

age at bus M, bus N and the fault point F in normal operation state. jZ m j 6 ka jZ set j In-zone fault
ð6Þ
I_m , I_n and I_f are the current at the relaying point on the collector jZ m j > ka jZ set j Out-of-zone fault
system side, the relaying point on the system side, and the fault
where Zm is the measured impedance. Zset is the boundary of the
point, I_f ¼ I_m þ I_n . w is the angular difference between the mea-
protection setting range. ka is the adaptive setting coefficient,
sured current I_m and the fault point voltage U_ f . When fault occurs 
uline wÞ
!
ka ¼ cosð90
sinðu þwÞ
. uline is the impedance angle of the protected col-
ui
at the same point via different fault resistances, OF will move along lector line. uui is the phase angle difference between the measured
!
the arc with U_ f j0j as the string; while MF still represents the voltage voltage and measured current. w is the angular difference between
drop on Z and has nothing to do with the fault resistance. C is the the measured current I_m and the fault point voltage U_ f .
intersection of the measured current I_m and the extended line of
! 2.3. Calculation of the deviation angle w
MF .
The following relationships exist in Fig. 3: In order to realize adaptive distance protection for the collector
8
>
> j OA! j ¼ jU_ m j cos u line, the angular difference w between the measured current I_m and
>
>
>
> the fault point voltage U_ f must be calculated first. Since the fault
>
>
> j MA! j ¼ jU_ m j sinðuui þ 90  uline Þ
< resistance is usually pure resistive, the fault point voltage has the
j FA! j ¼ jU_ m j cosðuui þ 90  uline Þ tanð90  uline  wÞ ð3Þ same phase angle as the short circuit current, i.e. w equals to the
>
>
>
> angular difference between the measured current and the short
> j MF ! j ¼ j MA! j  j FA! j ¼ jU_ m j sinðuui þ 90  uline Þ
>
>
> circuit current.
>
:
jU_ m j cosðuui þ 90  uline Þ tanð90  uline  wÞ For single phase grounding fault,
!
Apply j MF j ¼ jI_m  Zj to (3), so that the voltage drop equation I_f ¼ 3I_f 0 ¼ 3I_f 2 ð7Þ
can be gained: Thus, according to (7), the deviation angle w of the measured cur-
jI_m jjZj ¼ jU_ m j sinðuui þ 90  uline Þ rent I_m from the fault point current can be calculated:
! ! !
jU_ m j cosðuui þ 90  uline Þ tanð90  uline  wÞ ð4Þ I_m I_m I_m
w ¼ arg ¼ arg ¼ arg ð8Þ
¼ jU_ m j sinðuui þwÞ
cosð90 uline wÞ I_f I_f 0 I_f 2

Divide both sides of (4) by the amplitude of the measured cur- where I_ f 2 and I_f 0 represent the negative sequence current and zero
rent I_m , so that: sequence current at the fault point.
When single phase grounding fault occurs on the collector line
sinðuui þ wÞ
jZj ¼ jZ m j ð5Þ of the wind farm shown in Fig. 2, the zero sequence equivalent net-
cosð90  uline  wÞ
work is shown in Fig. 4. a is the percentage of the distance from
According to (5), the adaptive distance protection criterion for fault point F to the collector system side in the whole line length.
wind farm collector lines can be formed: ZL0 is the line zero sequence impedance. ZN0 and ZM0 are equivalent
zero sequence impedance of the system side and the collector sys-
tem side respectively.
According to Fig. 4, the following relationship exists between
the zero sequence current at the fault point I_f 0 and the zero
sequence current at the relaying point of the collector system side
I_m0 :
Z N0 þ ð1  aÞZ L0 _
I_m0 ¼ C m0 I_f 0 ¼ If 0 ð9Þ
Z M0 þ Z N0 þ Z L0
Fig. 2. Adaptive distance protection analysis model. where Cm0 is the zero sequence current distribution coefficient.
 J. Ma et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 94 (2018) 234–244
Fig. 4. Zero sequence equivalent network when single phase grounding fault occurs
on the collector line.
Since the wind farm collector system is a weak feed system and
the system zero sequence impedance angle has nothing to do with
the load, the zero sequence current distribution coefficient in (9)
can be taken as real number, i.e. it can be taken that the zero
sequence current at the relaying point is approximately the same
as the zero sequence current at the fault point in phase angle. Thus,
the deviation angle in (8) can be expressed as:
! collector line is connected with 10 DFIGs, since each wind turbine
I_m
w ¼ arg
_Im0
According to (10), the deviation angle w is only related with the
zero sequence current and measured current at the relaying point.
By calculating w, the adaptive distance protection setting value
ka jZ set j in (6) can be gained, and then according to the protection
criterion the fault location can be identified.
3. Operation characteristics analysis
According to the above analysis, the proposed adaptive distance
protection scheme for wind farm collector lines has the following
characteristics:
(1) Adaptability. According to (6) and (10), the adaptive setting
coefficient ka could adjust adaptively according to the mea-
sured values of collector line electrical variables, and has
nothing to do with the back side system of the line. Thus
the proposed scheme is well adaptable to the variation in
system operation mode.
(2) Unaffected by the fault resistance. It can be seen from Fig. 3
!
that, MF , which represents the voltage drop from the relay-
ing point to the fault point, is not related with the fault resis-
tance. Therefore, the protection criterion formed with MF is
also immune to the fault resistance.
(3) Applicable to weak feed system. Wind generator manifests
weak feed characteristics. When grounding fault occurs on
the collector line, the zero sequence current is the main
Fig. 5. Wind farm simulation model.
237
component of the collector system side fault current. The
deviation angle could be calculated with the zero sequence
current according to (10). Thus, the proposed scheme is
applicable to wind farm collector line protection.
(4) The grounding impedance relay wiring is used for relays.
Thus the voltage at the relaying point can be expressed as
the sum of the fault point voltage and the voltage drop from
the relaying point to the fault point. And this applies to both
single phase grounding fault and three phase grounding
fault.
4. Simulation verification
4.1. Simulation system
To verify the correctness and effectiveness of the adaptive dis-
tance protection scheme proposed in this paper, a DFIG (doubly-
fed induction generator) wind farm simulation system is estab-
lished in RTDS for simulation tests, shown in Fig. 5. In Fig. 5, each
is equivalent to the parallel of 10 DFIGs.
ð10Þ
The main parameters of DFIG, the system, the 110 kV sending
line, the main transformer and the 35 kV collector lines used in
the simulation model are shown in Appendix A. In the simulation
process, the current break-value is used as the start-up component.
When the maximum of phase current break-values exceeds the
threshold value, the protection is started, and the measured value
and adaptive setting value are calculated according to the Full Four-
ier algorithm. In view of the dynamic characteristic of the protection
algorithm, it is at one period after the protection is started when the
operation criterion of adaptive distance protection is identified.
4.2. Different fault resistances
Suppose at t = 0.5 s, three types of fault occur on the wind farm
collector line respectively: (1) phase A-to-ground fault at 25% of
line L1, and none of the crowbar protection of wind generators
connected to L1 is put into operation; (2) phase A-to-ground fault
at 55% of line L1, and some of the crowbar protection of wind gen-
erators connected to L1 are put into operation; (3) phase A-to-
ground fault at 75% of line L1, and all of the crowbar protection
of wind generators connected to L1 are put into operation. The
operation curves of adaptive distance protection when the collec-
tor system is in the above three operating conditions are shown
! in Figs. 6–8. It can be seen that, in any operating conditions, when
fault occurs on line L1 via fault resistance, the measured values
decrease rapidly, while the setting values adjust adaptively accord-
ing to the measured information. Since the setting values remain
smaller than the measured values, the adaptive distance protection
could operate correctly in all the cases. Thus the proposed scheme
238 J. Ma et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 94 (2018) 234–244

(a) 0

Fig. 6. Operation curve of adaptive distance protection on the collector system side when phase A-to-ground fault occurs at 25% of L1 via different fault resistances.

Fig. 7. Operation curve of adaptive distance protection on the collector system side when phase A-to-ground fault occurs at 55% of L1 via different fault resistances.

is proved well adaptable to the variation of wind generator opera- In Tables 1 and 2, the results of (10) the angular difference w
tion mode, and strongly immune to the fault resistance. between the measured current I_m and the fault point voltage U_ f

uline wÞ
are calculated. Apply w to ka ¼ cosð90
sinðu þwÞ
, so that the adaptive
ui
4.3. Different fault locations
setting coefficient ka can be calculated. And then, according to

jZ m j 6 ka jZ set j In-zone fault
When phase A-to-ground fault occurs at different locations on the protection criterion , it
jZ m j > ka jZ set j Out-of-zone fault
L1 via different fault resistances, the setting values and measured
could be identified whether the fault is in the protection zone or
values of the adaptive distance protection on the collector system
out of the protection zone and whether the protection should
side and on the system side are shown in Tables 1 and 2
operate or not. In the tables, ‘+’ means the adaptive distance
respectively.
 J. Ma et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 94 (2018) 234–244 239

Fig. 8. Operation curve of adaptive distance protection on the collector system side when phase A-to-ground fault occurs at 75% of L1 via different fault resistances. Note: Zm
is the measured impedance at the relaying point, Zset is the boundary of the protection setting range and Ka is the adaptive setting coefficient in Figs. 6–8.

Table 1
Simulation results of adaptive distance protection when phase A-to-ground fault occurs at different locations on L1 via different fault resistances.

Fault Fault w (°) ka|Zset| (X) |Zm| (X) Operation status of the |Zset| (setting value of traditional Operation status of
resistance location (%) proposed protection scheme protection scheme) (X) traditional protection scheme
0/X 15 0.8191 14.8285 2.7390 + 14.3076 +
20 0.7458 14.8042 3.6543 + 14.3076 +
25 0.6655 14.7837 4.5694 + 14.3076 +
75 1.5168 14.5959 13.6992 + 14.3076 +
⁄
80 2.2443 14.5547 14.6101 – 14.3076 –
85 3.3777 14.4933 15.5204 – 14.3076 –
15/X 15 0.9021 92.6449 12.5338 + 14.3076 +
20 0.8266 84.9614 13.5107 + 14.3076 +
25 0.7420 79.0943 14.6193 + 14.3076 
75 1.7327 48.9086 43.9156 + 14.3076 
⁄
80 2.5566 48.4544 53.7533  14.3076 
85 3.7877 45.3916 69.4815  14.3076 
30/X 15 0.9010 169.1620 24.5728 + 14.3076 
20 0.8244 158.6523 26.2075 + 14.3076 
25 0.7385 132.2211 28.0609 + 14.3076 
75 1.7721 95.0934 82.9748 + 14.3076 
⁄
80 2.6050 82.7181 102.2239  14.3076 
85 3.8513 65.8730 132.9456  14.3076 

Note: 80% is the end of adaptive distance protection setting range.

protection operates, and ‘’ means the adaptive distance protec-
tion does not operate.
It can be seen from Tables 1 and 2 that, when fault occurs
within the protection range, the setting values are bigger than
the measured values, and the protection operates correctly. When
fault occurs outside the protection range, the setting values are
smaller than the measured values, and the protection does not
operate. Besides, when fault occurs via different fault resistances,
the adaptive distance protection on the collector system side and
on the system side both could operate correctly. Meanwhile, it
can be seen from Tables 1 and 2 that, compared with the proposed
method, traditional protection scheme does not operate correctly
in some cases.
4.4. Adjacent line fault
When fault occurs on an adjacent collector line, the crowbar
protection of wind generators connected to this collector line
may operate. In this case, the short circuit current from wind gen-
erators connected to this collector line may cause line protection of
this line to mal-operate, and the mal-operation of collector lines
with different line lengths are different. Suppose fault occurs on
line L2 near the 35 kV bus, this will cause the crowbar protection
of wind generators connected to L1 to operate in 3 possible ways:
none of the crowbar protection put into operation; part of the
crowbar protection put into operation; all of the crowbar protec-
tion put into operation. The operation curves of adaptive distance
240 J. Ma et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 94 (2018) 234–244

Table 2
Simulation results of the system side when phase A-to-ground fault occurs at different locations on L1 via different fault resistances.

Fault Fault w (°) ka|Zset| (X) |Zm| (X) Operation status of the |Zset| (setting value of Operation status of
resistance location (%) proposed protection scheme traditional protection scheme) (%) traditional protection scheme
0/X 15 1.6794 14.3366 2.6944 + 14.3076 +
20 1.6695 14.3474 3.6044 + 14.3076 +
25 1.6647 14.3549 4.5171 + 14.3076 +
75 1.4238 14.3671 13.6566 + 14.3076 +
⁄
80 1.3324 14.3658 14.5699  14.3076 
85 1.1960 14.3638 15.4831  14.3076 
15/X 15 1.7700 78.6102 11.9330 + 14.3076 +
20 1.7490 59.9608 12.8286 + 14.3076 +
25 1.7262 50.1189 13.8423 + 14.3076 +
75 1.1580 38.9774 37.7531 + 14.3076 
⁄
80 0.9896 41.1932 44.6816  14.3076 
85 0.7505 43.7545 54.9413  14.3076 
30/X 15 1.7501 203.3920 23.4023 + 14.3076 
20 1.7293 140.9058 24.8800 + 14.3076 
25 1.7063 111.4089 26.5476 + 14.3076 
75 1.0905 71.2240 71.1675 + 14.3076 
⁄
80 0.9075 72.5201 85.0437  14.3076 
85 0.6485 72.5224 105.5885  14.3076 

Note: 80% is the end of adaptive distance protection setting range.

Fig. 9. Operation curve of adaptive distance protection on the collector system side when none of the crowbar protection of the wind turbines connected to line L1 is put into
operation.

protection in the above three cases are shown in Figs. 9–11. It can
be seen that, after fault occurs on L2, no matter what operating
condition the wind generators connected to L1 are in, the adaptive
distance protection does not operate, unaffected by the line length.
4.5. Different fault types
When d = 10°, suppose different types of fault occur at 20 km
from bus M on line L1, the simulation results of distance protection
zone I are shown in Fig. 12. For phase A-to-B fault, Rf = 10 X (Rf is
the arc resistance between fault phases); for phase AB-to-ground
fault, Rf = 10 X, Rg = 300 X; for three phase fault, Rf = 10 X. It can
be seen that, when different types of fault occurs, the measured
value of adaptive distance protection falls in the operation zone
and distance protection zone I operates correctly. Thus the pro-
posed scheme is unaffected by the fault type. Besides, since the
measured voltage and measured current used for the phase CA-
to-ground fault are UC-UA and IC-IA, the measured impedance in
this case is scarcely affected by Rg. Thus the simulation result of
two phase-to-ground fault is similar to that of phase-to-phase
fault, as shown in Fig. 12(a) and (b).
4.6. Comparison with traditional distance protection
To analyze the immunity of traditional distance protection to
the fault resistance, suppose phase-A-to-ground fault occurs at
different locations on collector line L1 via different fault resis-
tances. The operation characteristics of traditional distance protec-
 J. Ma et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 94 (2018) 234–244 241

Fig. 10. Operation curve of adaptive distance protection on the collector system side when the crowbar protection of some of the wind turbines connected to line L1 are put
into operation.

Fig. 11. Operation curve of adaptive distance protection on the collector system side when the crowbar protection of all the wind turbines connected to line L1 are
put into operation. Note: Zm is the measured impedance at the relaying point, Zset is the boundary of the protection setting range and Ka is the adaptive setting coefficient in
Figs. 9–11.

tion apply the directional circle characteristics, and the setting
range covers 80% of the whole line length. When the measured
impedance falls inside the operation circle with the setting value
Zset (Zset = 1.1812 + j5.5597X) as diameter, distance protection will
operate. And when the measured impedance falls outside the oper-
ation circle, distance protection will not operate.
Suppose the total length of line L1 is 6 km, and
phase-A-to-ground fault occurs at 4 km from the relaying point
on collector line L1 via different fault resistances, the operation
curves of traditional distance protection are shown in Fig. 13. It
can be seen that, when the fault resistance is 5 X, the measured
value falls inside the operation area and traditional distance
242 J. Ma et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 94 (2018) 234–244

(a) A-B fault

(b) CA-ground fault

(c) Three-phase short circuit fault

Fig. 12. Simulation results of adaptive distance protection when different types of fault occur at 20 km from bus M on line L1.
 J. Ma et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 94 (2018) 234–244 243

5. Conclusion

In view of the sensitivity and selectivity problems in DFIG

Fig. 13. Operation curves of traditional distance protection when phase A-to-
ground fault occurs at 4 km from the relaying point via different fault resistances.
Fig. 14. Operation curves of traditional distance protection when phase A-to-
ground fault occurs via 30 X fault resistance at different locations.
protection operates correctly. When the fault resistance is bigger
than 10X, the measured value falls outside the operation area
and traditional distance protection refuses to operate.
When phase-A-to-ground fault occurs at different locations on
L1 via 30 X fault resistance, the variation trajectory of the mea-
sured impedance at the relaying point of the collector system side
is shown in Fig. 14. It can be seen that, even when the fault location
is at 10% of L1, the measured impedance still falls outside the oper-
ation circle, and traditional distance protection refuses to operate.
During the fault, the control actions of DFIG will act. However,
the proposed protection scheme is not affected by the wind gener-
ation system at the backside of the line and its control actions dur-
ing the fault. In fact, in the simulation section of this paper, the
effect of crowbar protection on the operation performance of line
protection when fault occurs on the line is considered. Simulation
results also show that, the operation performance of collector line
protection is not affected by the wind generation system at the
backside of the line and its control actions. Therefore, the detailed
model of DFIG is not derived in this paper, but the model of DFIG
used in the simulation is the detailed model with control actions.
(doubly-fed induction generator) wind farm collector line pro-
tection, a new adaptive distance protection scheme is proposed.
First, according to the geometric distribution characteristics of
the collector line voltage and current, the equation of voltage
drop from the relaying point to the fault point is established
and the adaptive setting coefficient is calculated. On this basis,
a new adaptive distance protection criterion is formed according
to the phase relationship between the fault current and the
measured current. Simulation tests on RTDS wind farm model
verify that, the proposed protection scheme is adaptive—the set-
ting coefficient could adjust adaptively to the measurements, so
that distance protection is well adaptable to the variation of
operation modes. The protection criterion has nothing to do
with the fault resistance, thus the proposed protection scheme
is not affected by fault resistance, with better operation
performance than traditional distance protection. Besides, the
proposed protection scheme is not affected by fault on the adja-
cent line. When the crowbar protection of DFIG connected to a
certain line operates due to fault on the adjacent line, distance
protection on this line will not mal-operate, no matter what the
line length. When the collector line is connected by the trunk
connection mode, it is not necessary to install the protection
scheme proposed in this paper because the last section of the
collector line connected with the medium-voltage bus is too
short in this case.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the New-Star of Science and
Technology supported by Beijing Metropolis Beijing Nova program
(Z141101001814012), the Excellent talents in Beijing City
(2013B009005000001), the Fund of Fok Ying Tung Education Foun-
dation (141057). The authors would like to thank Dr. Arun G.
Phadke.
Appendix A
The main parameters of DFIG, the system, the 110 kV sending
line, the main transformer and the 35 kV collector lines used in
the simulation model are respectively shown in Table A1.

Table A1
The main parameters.

The main parameters of DFIG

Rated power 2 MW Rotor resistance 0.00607 pu
Rated frequency 50 Hz Stator leakage inductance 0.102 pu
Stator rated voltage 690 V Rotor leakage inductance 0.11 pu
Stator resistance 0.0054 pu Mutual inductance 4.362 pu
The main parameters of the system
Positive sequence impedance ZS1 = 4.264 + j85.15 X Zero sequence impedance ZS0 = 0.6 + j9.91 X
System voltage ES = 330\d°kV Short-circuit capacity 1000MVA
The main parameters of the 110 kV sending line
Positive sequence impedance ZL1 = 0.131 + j0.401 X/km Zero sequence impedance ZL0 = 0.328 + j0.197 X/km
Line length L = 60 km
The main parameters of the main transformer
Rated capacity 100 MVA Short-circuit voltage Ud = 10.5%
Rated voltage 38.5 kV/110 kV
The main parameters of the 35 kV collector lines
Positive sequence impedance Z1 = 0.020 + j0.894 X/km Zero sequence impedance Z0 = 0.114 + j2.288 X/km
Line length L1 = 20 km, L2 = 14 km, L3 = 8 km
244 J. Ma et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 94 (2018) 234–244

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