Cooperative strategy of ESS control and protection for enhancement of phase selection recovery capacity and distance protection acceleration for IBR plant transmission lines

• ESS reshapes IBR plant seq-impedance to 90°, restoring conventional phase selection. • Control switching yields impedance trajectory for accelerated distance protection. • Hybrid coordination scheme blends ESS control with remote-trip for rapid, reliable fault clearing. Distance protection of transmission lines of inverter-based renewable (IBR) Plant faces significant challenges due to the different fault characteristics brought by power electronic interfaces. Conventional phase selection elements and impedance-based protection logic are often rendered ineffective, particularly under high fault resistance or low-voltage ride-through (LVRT) control scenarios. To address these issues, this paper proposes a coordinated control and protection strategy leveraging the active regulation capabilities of energy storage systems (ESS). First, the phase selection recovery strategy is developed by reshaping the angles of positive- and negative-sequence equivalent impedance of IBR plant through adjusting the ESS control. By imitating the impedance characteristic exhibited from the transient process of synchronous generators, the adaptability performance of existing protection is enhanced. Then, the improved distance protection acceleration strategy is proposed by utilizing fully the responses of system by switching control modes, which enable the impedance change. With the changing impedances during the control switching process, the fault location could be determined accurately using only local measurements. Furthermore, the coordination scheme is established to integrate the proposed acceleration strategy with conventional acceleration strategies, ensuring comprehensive coverage throughout the entire fault process. Finally, EMTDC/PSCAD simulations establish the accuracy and robustness of the proposed phase selection and distance-protection acceleration. In addition, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) tests with a commercial protective relay verify the acceleration function, confirming selectivity and security.