Fast single-phase fault location method based on community graph depth-first traversal for distribution network

Abstract

With the increasing complexity of distribution network structure originated from high penetration of renewable energy and responsive loads, fast and accurate fault location technology of distribution network is a prerequisite for rapid isolation of faults and restoration of power supply. In this paper, a fault location method based on community graph depth-first traversal is proposed for fast location of single-phase ground faults in distribution network. First, this paper defines the fault graph weight of the vertices in the distribution network graph model, which are used to reflect the topology of the vertices and fault points as well as the fluctuation of the vertices' currents. Then, the vertices on the graph model are clustered by using an improved parallel louvain method (IPLM). Finally, the community formed by IPLM is used as the smallest unit for depth-first traversal to achieve fast and accurate location of the fault section. The paper builds the distribution network graph model of IEEE 33-bus system on the graph database for testing. And three other methods were selected for comparison with IPLMDF. The test results show that IPLMDF can achieve fast and accurate fault location when half of the nodes in the distribution network are equipped with D-PMUs. When some of the D-PMUs lose time synchronization, it is still possible to locate the fault section, and at the same time, the locating results can be avoided to fall into local optimal solutions.