This paper presents a new impedance based fault location algorithm for practical radial distribution systems. The algorithm uses the fundamental components of voltages and currents recorded by a digital fault recorder usually installed at the head of main feeders.
At f More
This paper presents a new impedance based fault location algorithm for practical radial distribution systems. The algorithm uses the fundamental components of voltages and currents recorded by a digital fault recorder usually installed at the head of main feeders.
At first, the algorithm estimates the average loading and power factor of distribution transformers by using the pre-fault voltage and current phasors. Then from the post-fault voltage and current phasors, the preliminary candidates for fault location are determined by searching all the feeder sections. Finally, the actual fault location is determined by checking operated fuses/sectionalizers, or fault indicators.
The fault location method has been developed as a software package named DFL (Digital Fault Locator) in “Electricity Networks Protection and Automation” research laboratory of Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST).
The accuracy of the proposed algorithm has been validated by several fault conditions carried out on a 205-node 20 kV practical radial distribution feeder. The results of the developed software have shown very remarkable accuracy in fault location as presented in the paper.
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