Powering up microgrids: A comprehensive review of innovative and intelligent protection approaches for enhanced reliability

Microgrid protection schemes play a vital role in ensuring the reliability and efficiency of power distribution in urban and rural areas, especially as renewable distributed energy resources are increasingly integrated. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of existing microgrid protection schemes, discussing their advantages and limitations and highlighting key challenges and opportunities for future research. As microgrid systems become increasingly common, the management of power flow in small-community networks equipped with intelligent electronic devices, non-linear loads, and multiple distributed generation sources becomes more complicated. In order to address these challenges, coordination of protective schemes is required to prevent overload and damage to equipment. Firstly, the study discusses microgrid definitions and functional categories, highlighting their benefits and drawbacks. An analysis of microgrid protection literature includes adaptive protection systems as intelligent methods to address coordination challenges. Secondly, this review classifies microgrid protection techniques as modified, new knowledge-based and conventional schemes and provides a systematic analysis of optimization approaches. The study also examines the essential problems associated with the coordination of protective relays within microgrids. Finally, examining the current state of microgrid protection to identify the key research directions and opportunities for future development in this rapidly advancing field. The findings of this comprehensive analysis highlight the importance of effective microgrid protection in ensuring a stable and sustainable energy future.