Fault Detection Technique for Inverter controls

Applications

• Inverters for Renewable power generation (photovoltaic (PV), wind)

Technology Overview

Existing inverters of utility-scale renewable resources, such as solar and wind, operate differently during unbalanced faults than the synchronous generators of conventional power plants. With the increasing penetration of inverter-based resources (IBR), the existing protection schemes using commonly used protection relays will have significant limitations..

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a relay management system technology for use in renewable/inverter-based energy applications. The system identifies faults and imbalances and then injects the appropriate currents to make the relays work in the existing transmission-protection infrastructure. This provides advantages of: (a) leveraging existing transmission-protection infrastructure and, (b) entailing a relatively simple implementation at the source of the problem (at the IBRs).

Phase of Development

Desired Partnerships

• License
• Sponsored research
• Co-development

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Researchers

• Ned Mohan Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering