Using PQ Monitoring and Substation Relays for Fault Location on Distribution Systems

Fault location is of considerable interest for utilities to improve their reliability and speed storm restorations. Power quality recorders, relays, and other monitors can provide information to help locate faults. In this paper, some basic impedance-based fault-location methods are evaluated on utility measurement data with known fault locations. The main finding is that reasonably accurate fault locations are possible on a wide range of distribution circuits with either feeder-level or bus-level substation monitoring. Another important finding described is how monitoring can be used to estimate the parameters of the fault arc. This can improve fault locations and help with accident investigations, equipment failure forensics, and other hazards related to the power and energy created by the arc