Novel modified impedance-based methods for fault location in the presence of a fault current limiter

Abstract

A fault current limiter (FCL) is promising novel electric equipment to effectively reduce excessive short circuit current in power networks. The presence of a FCL at the time of a fault occurrence makes it necessary to consider new settings for protective relays and fault locators. This paper examines the presence of a FCL in power networks and its effects on single-ended impedance-based fault location methods. It will be shown that FCL deployment in a transmission line makes the traditional fault location method inefficient. Two modified methods are presented to solve the problem. The modified methods locate the fault point using remote bus impedance in the presence of the FCL. The accuracy of the proposed methods is validated using the IEEE 14-bus system. The simulation results indicate that the proposed methods have considerable superiority over the conventional technique and perform well for different faults and FCL types.