The inclusion of distributed energy resources (DER) in Microgrids (MGs) comes at the expense of increased changes in current direction and magnitude. In the autonomous mode of MG operation, the penetration of synchronous distributed generators (DGs) induces lower short circuit current than when the MG operates in the grid-connected mode. Such behavior impacts the overcurrent relays and makes the protection coordination difficult. This paper introduces a novel adaptive protection system that includes two phases to handle the influence of fault current variations and enable the MG to sustain its operation. The first phase optimizes the power flow by minimizing the generators’ active power loss while considering tolerable disturbances. For intolerable cases, the second phase opts to contain the effect of disturbance within a specific area, whose boundary is determined through correlation between primary/backup relay pairs. A directional overcurrent relay (DOCR) coordination optimization is formulated as a nonlinear program for minimizing the operating time of the relays within the contained area. Validation is carried out through the simulation of the IEEE 9, IEEE 14, and IEEE 15 bus systems as an autonomous MG. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed protection system and its superiority to a competing approach in the literature.

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