A New Approach to the Fault Location Problem: Using the Fault’s Transient Intermediate Frequency Response

The fault location problem has been tackled mainly through impedance-based techniques, the travelling wave principle and more recently machine learning algorithms. These techniques require both current and voltage measurement. In the case of impedance-based methods they can provide multiples solutions. In the case of the travelling wave approach it usually requires high sampling frequency measurements together with sophisticated identification algorithms. Machine learning techniques require training data and re-tuning for different grid topologies. This paper proposes a new fault location method based on the fault’s transient intermediate frequency response of the system immediately after a fault occurs. The transient response is characterized by the travelling wave phenomenon together with intermediate frequencies of oscillation, which are dependent on the faulted section and the fault location. In the proposed fault location solution, an offline methodology identifies these intermediate frequencies and their dependency on the fault location is fitted using a polynomial regression. The online fault location is performed using those polynomial regressions together with voltage measurements from the system and simple signal processing techniques. The full method is tested with an EMT simulation in PSCAD, using the exact frequency dependent model for underground cables.