Fault Location in Distribution Systems Based on Smart Feeder Meters

Abstract

This paper proposes a fault-location method based on smart feeder meters with voltage sag monitoring capability. The main idea is to explore voltage measurements from monitors placed in different buses of distribution systems to estimate the fault location. The estimation is achieved by relating the voltage deviation measured by each meter to the fault current calculated based on the bus impedance matrix, considering the fault in different points. In order to improve the method accuracy, the loads are represented by constant impedance models and included into the bus impedance matrix. The performance of the proposed method is demonstrated by using a real distribution system. Sensitivity studies results show that the method is robust since it has good performance for different values of fault resistance, quantity, and location of the smart meters.