A novel Zigbee based pilot protection scheme for smart distribution grid

Protective relays have become a vital component in power grids due to their multi functionality and crucial role in protecting the distribution network. Usually, a two terminal line could use a pair of protective relays to deliver a fast response when a fault is detected. In this paper an IEEE 802.15.4 Zigbee based wide area smart grid communication network has been developed and a proposed Demand Based Priority Queuing technique is used to provide reliable and high speed delivery of the pilot protection signals. A test bed model was developed to test the communication model feasibility. For high speed machine to machine communication between protection relays, the IEC 61850-90-5 based Generic Object Oriented Event (GOOSE) protocol has been considered. Simulation was carried out utilising Castalia and test bed experiments were conducted using a network of CC2530 chips (Zigbee protocol stack). The results demonstrate that the proposed communication model can operate within guaranteed delay bounds for the pilot signals.