A fast and accurate Bi-level fault location method for transmission system using single ended phasor measurements

Abstract

To guarantee continuous and reliable operation of power systems working near their stability margins, it is necessary to clear faults quickly. For this purpose, accurate and fast fault location methods are required. Single-ended phasor based methods are a category of fault location strategies which are favourable due to simplicity of their implementation. However, enhancing the accuracy of these methods is a challenging task due to unavailability of data from the remote end of the line. In this paper, a novel fault location method that requires the measured data of one end of the line is proposed. As a result, this method does not need communication links. The proposed method is bi-level and in its first level, fault characteristics such as current, voltage, and impedance of the fault are calculated for a given fault location obtained from Level-2. Then, based on the calculated fault characteristics, fault location is updated in the second level. The presented fault location method considers magnetic coupling between lines and it is also applicable for both transposed and un-transposed lines. Numerous simulation studies verify the accuracy of the proposed method in presence of uncertainties such as noise, fault impedance and error in input line parameters. Furthermore, although the proposed method is based on a bi-level iterative approach, the presented results confirm that it converges quickly in 2 or 3 iterations.