Decentralized adaptive overcurrent protection for medium voltage maritime power systems

More and more maritime applications as marine vessels and offshore platforms need an adaptive protection power system. However, the adaptive protection is yet to be implemented in the maritime sector. Usually, the adaptive protection implies the existence of a central control unit that monitors the entire electrical network and changes the relay settings accordingly, but this approach is not adequate for the maritime power systems. This paper propose a decentralized adaptive protection method, where each protection relay is able to identify by itself the network status without the need of a central control unit. The new adaptive protection method is based on communication between the overcurrent relays and the equipment that could affect the protection system, such as circuit breakers and generators. Using PSCAD, the proposed method is implemented in a test medium voltage maritime power system that possess some of the characteristics of the maritime applications, as variable generation and network reconfiguration.