Evaluating the role of current limiting fuses for wind farm protection applications

Protective relaying elements for wind farms, in particular, are sometimes characterized with different performance as compared with other ones used conventionally in power systems. Some factors including distributed generation concept, the own behavior of the Induction Generator (IG) and varying wind speed play basic roles for these situations. Current Limiting Fuses (CLFs) are commonly employed for protecting the local step-up transformer at each wind generation unit. In this paper, the performance of these elements is thoroughly investigated. For this purpose, a detailed dynamic simulation for a 305 MW wind farm in AL-Zafarana-Egypt is employed. CLF is also modeled in an interactive manner by simultaneously aggregate the fusing action with the power system simulation running employing the S-M function with level-2 M-file code in MATLAB-Simulink. This helps to clarify the behavior of CLFs for wind farm applications emphasizing the effects that may influence their performance in wind farms.