A Comparison of Impedance-Based Fault Location Methods for Power Underground Distribution Systems

Abstract

Abstract:In the last few decades, the Smart Grid paradigm presence has increased within power systems. These new kinds of networks demand new Operations and Planning approaches, following improvements in the quality of service. In this sense, the role of the Distribution Management System, through its Outage Management System, is essential to guarantee the network reliability. This system is responsible for minimizing the consequences arising from a fault event (or network failure). Obviously, knowing where the fault appears is critical for a good reaction of this system. Therefore, several fault location techniques have been proposed. However, most of them provide individual results, associated with specific testbeds, which make the comparison between them difficult. Due to this, a review of fault location methods has been done in this paper, analyzing them for their use on underground distribution lines. Specifically, this study is focused on an impedance-based method because their requirements are in line with the typical instrumentation deployed in distribution networks. This work is completed with an exhaustive analysis of these methods over a PSCAD TM X4 implementation of the standard IEEE Node Test Feeder, which truly allows us to consistently compare the results of these location methods and to determine the advantages and drawbacks of each of them.

Location of Faulty Section and Faults in Hybrid Multi-Terminal Lines Based on Traveling Wave Methods

“…The simulation results reveal that the proposed method can correctly identify the fault section and accurately locate the faults, which is simple and suitable for hybrid multi-terminal lines.Energies 2018, 11, 1105 2 of 18 matrix models for unbalanced three-phase line is described to analyse ground fault current and also to handle unsymmetrical faults with hybrid compensation for microgrid distribution systems. However, there are major errors in impedance-based fault location, mainly caused by fault resistance, line asymmetry, capacitive effect, or current transformer saturation [15]. Thus, traveling-wave-based methods have been widely used to avoid these drawbacks.…”

Automatic Faulted Feeder Section Location and Isolation Method for Power Distribution Systems Considering the Change of Topology

“…It is novel because other methods such as [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] do not consider multiple faults. In addition, the authors of [24] state that their method will have limitations when locating multiple faults.…”

“…In addition, the authors of [24] state that their method will have limitations when locating multiple faults. Besides, many other methods, such as impedance-based methods [3][4][5][6][7][8] have multi-estimation problem, which should be solved using other skills. The new proposed method does not have this problem.…”

“…Some methods have used simple but time-consuming visual inspection to locate the fault [2]. Other fault location algorithms that have been proposed include impedance based methods [3][4][5][6][7][8], travelling-wave based methods [9][10][11], minimum fault reactance methods [12,13], voltage-sag based methods [14][15][16][17], knowledge based methods [18][19][20], and multi-agent approaches [21,22]. However, due to the relatively complex nature of distribution systems, each of these methods has some disadvantages.…”

“…Methods such as electrical-parameter-based methods [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]24] can determine the fault point or faulted section only, but cannot give the switches that should be opened to isolate the fault. The importance of this is that there is no need to adopt other methods to isolate the fault.…”