Protection security assessment — Innovative strategies and methods for future networks

This paper presents new strategies and methods for assessing the security of protection systems and for protection system adaption to reduce the risk of unnecessary disturbances and blackouts. The introduced algorithms are capable to handle complex network structures. Hence, the system behavior of a protection system and network is analyzed and assessed as a whole. Protection security assessment can be investigated under two different aspects: on the one hand the behavior regarding selectivity, speed and sensitivity and on the other hand the behavior regarding the response on dynamic network phenomena as voltage stability and transient stability. A new automated method, called SIGUARD^® PSA for assessing the security, selectivity and speed of protection systems is shown. The simulation tool PSS^®SINCAL is used to provide a holistic simulation system of network and protection devices. The handling of the large amount of resulting data is done by an intelligent visualization method like a `fingerprint´ analysis. Further on the paper is focused on the protection response on dynamic network phenomena and presents innovative strategies for this investigation aspect. Applicable protection models and the simulation environment based on PSS^®NETOMAC will be described. Finally new strategies of protection adaption will be shown based on case studies of real networks.