An Accurate Fault Location Algorithm for Smart Electrical Distribution Systems Equipped with Micro Phasor Mesaurement Units

Faults in electrical distribution systems are among the main causes for power disruption and outage. Therefore, it is necessary to locate faults accurately and quickly. This paper proposes an accurate impedance-based algorithm to locate faults in smart distribution network. The network has become fully observable with the minimum number of micro phasor measurement units (μPMUs). Distributed line parameters model is used to improve fault location algorithm in terms of accuracy. Since the impedance-based algorithms are sensitive to the load impedance of each node, the current and voltage of all nodes are calculated using pre-fault recorded current and voltage by each μPMU. The load impedance of each node and subsequently, the equivalent impedance at the end of every section is calculated. The performance of the proposed algorithm is investigated on an observable IEEE 34 Node Test Feeder under various fault conditions such as: different types of fault, distances, resistances and fault inception angles. In addition, to for further demonstration, practical tests are performed.