Review of network topologies and protection principles in marine and offshore applications

An electric fault that is not cleared is harmful in land applications, but in marine and offshore sector it can have catastrophic consequences. If the protection system fails to operate properly, the following situation may occur: blackouts, fire, loss of propulsion, delays in transportation, collision with the cliff, reef or other ships and electrical shocks to humans. In order to cope with the unwanted effects of a fault, several protection strategies are applied, but complexity of the marine and offshore applications is continuously increasing, so protection needs to overcome more and more challenges. As result, development of new protection techniques that can offer improved functionalities compared to the actual solutions for marine and offshore applications is needed. This paper reviews the network topologies in such applications and presents the requirements of a system able to protect them. Also, a brief overview of the protection principles for a generic power system is presented.