Vectorized Calculation of Short Circuit Currents Considering Distributed Generation - An Open Source Implementation of IEC 60909

TL;DR

This paper introduces an open source, vectorized method for calculating short circuit currents based on IEC 60909, considering distributed generation, validated against commercial tools, and scalable for large grid studies.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive open source implementation of IEC 60909 for short circuit calculations including distributed generation.

Findings

Validated against commercial software and literature examples.

Scales well for large grid models.

Practical application demonstrated in a real MV grid case study.

Abstract

An important task in grid planning is to ensure that faults in the grid are detected and cut off without damage in any grid element. Calculating short circuit currents is therefore a vital grid analysis functionality for grid planning applications. The standard IEC 60909 provides guidelines for short circuit calculations and is routinely applied in grid planning applications. This paper presents a method for the vectorized calculation of short circuit currents according to IEC 60909. Distributed generation units are considered according to the latest revision of the standard. The method is implemented in the python based open source tool pandapower and validated against commercial software and examples from literature. The implementation presented in this paper is the first comprehensive implementation of the IEC 60909 standard which is available under an open source license. It can be used to evaluate fault currents in grid studies with a high degree of automation and is shown to scale well for large grids. Its practical applicability is shown in a case study with a real MV grid with a high degree of DG penetration.