Flexible grids protection schemes in ELIA vision: From traditional to intelligent ones

In this moment inside the structures of electrical power grids worldwide the building of future super-grids and smart grids is starting to take shape. The utility industry, including ELIA the Belgian TSO, is facing the need to be proactive towards the challenges introduced at transmission and distribution levels by the process of massive implementation of both centralized and distributed generation. The paper´s aim is to present studies in the protection and automation domain developed for new primary topologies to be deployed in the Belgian network and to cope with an increasing level of power flowing towards the transmission grid from decentralized generation installed in the distribution grid. The first study leads to the conclusion that an evolution from traditional towards flexible and adaptive protection and automation schemes is necessary in order to cope with potential system stability problems related to fault clearance time and power swing oscillations. The second study shows that the use of a flexible protection and automation scheme allows avoiding heavy investments in the primary system. The paper presents also some considerations about asset management strategy for a future deployment of these protection solutions in ELIA network.