Abstract
Finding the location of faults in distribution networks has been a long standing problem for utility operators, and an interesting subject for researchers as well. In recent years, significant research efforts have been devoted to the development of methods for identification of the faulted area to assist utility operators in expediting service restoration, and consequently reducing outage time and relevant costs. Considering today’s wide variety of distribution systems, a solution preferred for a specific system might be impractical for another one. This paper provides a comparison framework which classifies and reviews a relatively large number of different fault location and outage area location methods to serve as a guide to power system engineers and researchers to choose the best option based on their existing system and requirements. It also supports investigations on the challenging and unsolved problems to realize the fields of future studies and improvements. For each class of methods, a short description of the main idea and methodology is presented. Then, all the methods are discussed in detail presenting the key points, advantages, limitations, and requirements.
Highlights
As the final stage of the delivery of electric power, European distribution companies supply 260 million customers of which 99% are residential customers and small businesses [1]
This paper provides a comparison framework which classifies and reviews a relatively large number of different fault location and outage area location methods to serve as a guide to power system engineers and researchers to choose the best option based on their existing system and requirements
Based on the required inputs and their main idea, the proposed methods to locate the outage area can be classified to trouble call-based methods [5,6,7], historical data-based methods [8,9], algorithms using fault indicators [10,11], methods based on Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) in modern distribution networks [12,13], and algorithms using a combination of different sources of information [14,15,16]
Summary
Abstract—Finding the location of faults in distribution networks has been a long standing problem for utility operators, and an interesting subject for researchers as well. This paper provides a comparison framework which classifies and reviews a relatively large number of different fault location and outage area location methods to serve as a guide to power system engineers and researchers to choose the best option based on their existing system and requirements. It supports investigations on the challenging and unsolved problems to realize the fields of future studies and improvements.
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