An intelligent and cost-effective method for single-phase fault location in conventional distribution systems

Abstract

Fault location in medium voltage (MV) electricity distribution networks has always been a challenge, in particular, for the last few years. The existence of information only at the beginning of the feeder and the complexity of the widespread and scattered distribution networks make fault location of MV distribution networks a difficult task. The performance of most of the existing methods for fault location is compromised when dealing with today’s MV distribution grid. In this paper, a new fault location method is introduced for MV distribution networks, using transient frequency analysis. The transient caused by fault in the network is analyzed. The main idea of fault location algorithm is to determine and measure the Analysis Index. The location of fault is identified through the relationship between the proposed Analysis Index and different sections in the distribution feeder. In order to evaluate and analyze the proposed method, at first a standard IEEE 11-node network is simulated and tested in MATLAB software, then the same procedure is repeated for a real 69-node network. The results confirm a good performance.