High pass filter based traveling wave method for fault location in VSC-Interfaced HVDC system

Abstract

Due to the difficult topography and bad weather conditions across large distances, dc line breakdown is a serious danger to the safety of high-voltage direct-current systems (HVDC). Thus, there is a need of an accurate and reliable fault location method to safely isolate the dc grid in the occurrence of a dc fault. Traveling wave (TW) fault location techniques have gained in popularity over the decades, with the expectation that power networks will become considerably more credible and accurate throughout. However, in the existing traveling wave based location, the signal processing methodology for extracting the wave front consumes too many computer resources, necessitating the development of a new location method with a fast response and high accuracy. In this paper, a new algorithm of TW based on high pass filter is proposed, it can differentiate the TW peak more easily by removing the oscillation in a signal. To ensure more accuracy double ended method (Type D) is used to obtain the location for the fault. The theory behind this new algorithm is presented in detail. High pass filter is designed for this purpose and its validity tested on point to point (P2P) dc simulation model which is created in PSCAD software to gather the voltage data from both terminals during transient. Following that the proposed fault location algorithm is executed in the MATLAB environment to get the fault location results. A comparison of the proposed algorithm with two popular methods namely the wavelet transforms (WT) and the single ended method highlights the superiority.