A Novel Fault Location Methodology for Smart Distribution Networks

Power distribution networks (PDNs) has played a crucial role in expediting transition towards cleaner and better distributed energy sources. Nowadays, more and more distributed generations (DGs) are used in PDNs which complicates the automatic fault location. This paper presents an accurate impedance-based method to determine the fault location for smart PDN in the presence of DGs. In addition, phase domain equations of distributed line parameters are used to enhance the accuracy of fault location. Two types of networks are considered. The first type of network is assumed to be fully observable with μPMU and in the second type there are only a few μPMUs with data loggers on the rest nodes. Load impedances of all nodes are estimated using pre-fault recorded information by present μPMUs and data loggers. The proposed algorithm might suggest several points as possible fault locations for a PDN. To find out the actual location of fault same fault type is simulated for all suggested points. A matching value which is mathematically defined in the paper, is calculated using recorded and simulated voltage to determine the actual fault point among all the suggested candidates. The accuracy of suggested method is analyzed against various conditions.