An Advanced Single-Terminal Fault Location Framework for LVDC Grids
Authors:
- Vaibhav Nougain
- Sukumar Mishra
- Joan-Marc Rodriguez-Bernuz
- Adrià Junyent-Ferré
- Aditya Shekhar
- Aleksandra Lekić
Published in: IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications ( Early Access )
Abstract:
Identifying faulty lines and their accurate location is key to the rapid restoration of distribution systems. Fault identification and its location will become more challenging as power electronics penetration increases and contingencies are seen in larger areas. This paper proposes a single terminal fault location methodology (i.e., no communication involved) that is robust to variations of key parameters (e.g., sampling frequency, fault resistance, etc.) for low voltage DC systems. The proposed method uses local measurements to estimate the current caused by the other remote terminals affected by the contingency. This mimics the strategy followed by double terminal methods that require communications and decouple the accuracy of the methodology from the fault resistance. The algorithm takes consecutive voltage and current samples, including the estimated current of the other terminal. This mathematical approach results in better accuracy than other single-terminal approaches in the literature. The robustness of the proposed strategy against different fault resistances and locations is demonstrated using PSCAD/EMTDC and Real-Time Digital Simulator (RTDS).
