Fault Diagnosis of Smart Grid Distribution System by Using Smart Sensors and Symlet Wavelet Function

Abstract

In today's era of smart grid system scenario, the fault diagnosis is of utmost important task. Present distribution networks change drastically due to expansion and inclusion of large number of distributed generation units into power system at distribution level. To face the challenges of modernized girds, conventional fault diagnosis methodologies require drastic change by making use of advanced infrastructure and technologies. This will be helpful to achieve automation in fault diagnosis tasks, improved power quality, reliability, resilience and self healing property of the power system. This paper proposes the use of smart sensors and advanced communication technology that will be available in future smart grids to carry out automated fault diagnosis tasks using signal processing techniques. Methods of using Standard deviation features of fault transient signal and a fault location factors are proposed. Performance of various scaling levels, features and components of fault transient current signals extracted using the latest non conventional Symlet mother wavelet function are evaluated and compared. The attempt is made to select optimal features and components of fault transient currents to improve the performance of present limited types of available fault locators. The tests are taken on standard model of smart grid distribution system but can be applied for fault diagnosis of any other power equipment. Results show adequate accuracy to extend the use of proposed method for real time applications.