English

Deep Reinforcement Learning-BasedRobust Protection in DER-Rich Distribution Grids

Systems and Control 2021-06-03 v3 Systems and Control

Abstract

This paper introduces the concept of Deep Reinforcement Learning based architecture for protective relay design in power distribution systems with many distributed energy resources (DERs). The performance of widely-used overcurrent protection scheme is hindered by the presence of distributed generation, power electronic interfaced devices and fault impedance. In this paper, a reinforcement learning-based approach is proposed to design and implement protective relays in the distribution grid. The particular algorithm used is an Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) enhanced deep neural network that is highly accurate, communication-free and easy to implement. The proposed relay design is tested in OpenDSS simulation on the IEEE 34-node test feeder and demonstrated much more superior performance over traditional overcurrent protection from the aspect of failure rate, robustness and response speed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2003.02422,
  title  = {Deep Reinforcement Learning-BasedRobust Protection in DER-Rich Distribution Grids},
  author = {Dongqi Wu and Dileep Kalathil and Miroslav Begovic and Le Xie},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.02422},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

Submitted to IEEE Transactions of Smart Grid, under review

R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:04:32.033Z