Research on Impact of Solar Power Plants on 110 kV Line Current Differential Protection Operation

The paper presents the research on the impact of renewable energy sources based power plants interfaced to power grids through inverters on differential protection of a line connecting such a power plant to an external grid. The paper considers the case of a weak power grid with a relatively high-capacity solar power plant. An approach to evaluate the IBR impact on differential protection in steady-state conditions under typical inverter control scenarios is suggested. The factors affecting the differential protection operation are revealed. The brief guidance concerning the application of differential protection in such power grids is given.