Accurate Fault Location Technique for Unbalance Active Distribution System Using Smart Meter Data

Nowadays resilient and reliable power supply is needed in the present active distribution systems (ADS) to enhance the quality of life. However, this requires information on the accurate fault location following an outage in a large area for fast restorations. Conventional techniques have limited performance in locating the faulty section and location due to the unsymmetrical, unbalanced nature of the distribution system. Further, the penetration of various converter-based DGs (CBDG) as well as nonlinear smart load in ADS modulates the voltage and current during fault. Hence, methodologies relying on basic network equations stand blind to detect the section having the fault. In contrast, smart DS has provided a base for continuous data collection with the help of a smart intelligent meter placed in the pole mounted transformer and communication channels, to enhance reliability, power quality, and efficiency. This paper proposed a new technique of accurate fault location scheme in an unbalanced active distribution system the apparent reactance and impedance to the faulty point using this voltage and current phasors is derived for different unbalanced conditions. The phasor is computed through a discrete Fourier transform. This proposed method is verified in a modified IEEE 33 bus system with the integration of a 2 MW Photo Voltaic system in various types of fault conditions with different fault resistances. This system is simulated in MATLAB/SIMULINK platform with unbalanced loads, therefore simulation results with and without DGs obtained with various fault conditions also observed the tolerable limit of percentage error with varying fault resistance.