Impact of Faults and Protection Methods on the DC Microgrids

DC Microgrid has become a superior power system in recent years due to development of DC loads and higher efficiency of DC systems. One of the challenging problems of DC Microgrids is protection, and it is still a particular concern associated with the challenges of developing a proper protection scheme owing to its characteristics and lack of adequate standards in DC protection. Due to the significant increasing interest on DC Microgrid; this paper investigates protection problems and schemes that need to be considered in modern power systems involving DC microgrids. This paper analyzes and presents a comprehensive review of the most recent growth in the DC Microgrids protection. Additionally, the fault characteristics of DC Microgrids, the impact of Constant Power Loads (CPLs) and several proposed methods to overcome the protection problems are discussed. The differences between the proposed protection methods for the DC Microgrids are also discussed.