Automatic Coordination of Protections in Electric Power Systems against Natural Disasters and/or Terrorist Attacks

This project addresses the critical need to enhance the resilience of Power Electric Systems (PES) against extreme abnormal events, such as natural disasters or terrorist attacks, which can cause supply outages and infrastructure damage. The main objective is to develop and propose an automatic protection coordination scheme that enables rapid detection, isolation, and restoration of the power supply. The methodology is structured in four stages: a descriptive phase for the state-of-the-art impact assessment; a deductive phase involving data collection, modeling, and simulation of the distribution circuit using specialized software, including protection coordination under initial conditions and contingency simulations; an experimental phase to analyze the sensitivity of coordination against scenario variations; and finally, an inductive phase to evaluate the performance and accuracy of the proposed methods. The focus is on the correct operation of equipment such as circuit breakers and disconnectors, relying on short-circuit current calculations and mathematical models implemented in MATLAB®, aiming to minimize the duration and adverse consequences of failures.<br/><br/><b>Goal</b>: <br/>To propose the automatic coordination of protections in power systems to mitigate the impact of extreme contingencies caused by natural disasters or terrorist attacks.<br/><br/><b>Research lines</b>: <br/>Stability and compensation in electrical systems