Single-end current-based algorithm for fault location in series capacitor compensated transmission lines

Abstract

The performance of protection functions in the series capacitor compensated transmission lines (SCCTLs) is affected by the capacitors protection system operating. One of these protection functions is the fault locator. This paper presents a highly accurate fault location algorithm in the SCCTLs for the single line to ground (SLG) faults, as the most common type of faults in transmission systems. The proposed algorithm identifies the fault location using the current phasors measured at only one side the faulty line, which makes it a low-cost and high reliable one. Therefore, the proposed algorithm can be easily implemented on numerical relays as it does not require communication channel to acquire remote data. In the proposed algorithm, after fault signal processing, the initial fault locations are obtained through moving the sampling window. Finally the exact fault location is calculated using the initial fault locations data and an outlier data removal technique. In order to evaluate the proposed algorithm, a test system is simulated in DIgSILENT software and processing process is implemented in MATLAB software. The obtained results show high accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method.