Synchrophasor Assisted Efficient Fault Location Techniques In An Active Distribution Network

Abstract

Reliability of an electrical system can be improved by an efficient fault location identification for the fast repair and remedial actions. This scenario changes when there are large penetrations of distributed generation (DG) which makes the distribution system an active distribution system. An efficient use of synchrophasors in the distribution network is studied with bidirectional power flow, harmonics and low angle difference consideration which are not prevalent in a transmission network. A synchrophasor estimation algorithm for the P class PMU is developed and applied to identify efficient fault location. A fault location technique using two ended synchronized measurement is derived from the principle of transmission line settings to work in a distribution network which is independent of line parameters. The distribution systems have less line length, harmonics and different sized line conductors, which affects the sensitivity of the synchronized measurements, Total Vector Error (TVE) and threshold for angular separation between different points in the network. A new signal processing method based on Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) is utilized to work in a distribution network as specified in IEEE C37.118 (2011) standard for synchrophasor. A specific P and M classes of synchrophasor measurements are defined in the standard. A tradeoff between fast acting P class and detailed measurement M class is sought to work specifically in the distribution system settings which is subjected to large amount of penetrations from the renewable energy