Mobile Laboratory for Identification of Radial Distribution Network Topology

One of the important problems that exist today in distribution networks is the lack of accurate and reliable information about its topology and equivalent circuit. The article presents a new approach to identification of the distribution network topology. The approach is based on active distribution network management. It is possible thanks to the development and applying of a mobile laboratory built on high-precision measuring equipment with an accuracy class of 0.05. The mobile laboratory is built on a three-level architecture, which includes: intelligent electronic devices; Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition server; application software that interacts with the user. It is shown that due to active load control, it becomes possible to identify the network topology using a simple recursive algorithm based on the analysis of voltage changes. The description of methodology and algorithm of network topology identification is resulted. The method for identifying the topology of 0.4 and 6 (10) kV networks consists of two stages: identification of the phases of each load; network topology identification independently for each phase. Considering 10kV feeder, the efficiency of this method was proved with the help of mathematical modelling. A detailed description of each stage of the algorithm is presented.