A Primary and Backup Cooperative Protection System Based on Wide Area Agents

This paper presents a study of wide area agents based on communication for primary and backup coordinated protection. Agents are used to give each protection component control capacity as well as the ability to communicate with other agents. We feel that this method naturally points toward a new philosophy for primary and backup protection. Simulations are used to illustrate concepts, using a simulation engine called EPOCHS that combines the EMTDC/PSCAD power simulator with the NS2 network communications simulator. Results show the improved performance of our protection scheme. In this new protection system, agents were embedded in each of the conventional protection components to construct an IED relay. The agent searches for relevant information by communicating with other agents. Agent communication can take place at the same substation or at remote substations. This information can be used to detect primary and remote faults, relay misoperation, breaker failures, and to compensate such problems with a much better performance than can be done in traditional schemes. Preliminary results give us hope that the proposed protection scheme may be able to contribute toward the mitigation of wide-area disturbances and the power blackouts that frequently follow them.