Locating ground fault in distribution systems using smart meter

Ground fault location and isolating the fault location is very challenging in compensated distribution systems because of the fact that the fault current is very small to be measured. Considering that the massive intelligent electronic devices and Smart meter are installed in the distribution networks with the development of the “smart grid”, in this paper proposes a fault location method using the high voltage side smart metering unit recorded data. In the developed method uses the faulted negative sequence voltage and locates the faulted sections by applying the relationship between fault distance and measurement groups. The method is tested using three bus distribution systems and results give that it is suitable for system with both passive loads and distributed generations and it is not influenced by the system harmonic distortions, measurement noises and the loss of communication from one or even more of metering units. The proposed method uses the wide-area measured data but does not require any synchronization method. Accompanied with the less cost contactors, the method can locate and isolate the fault sections without interrupting the good system operations and makes it feasible for industry application.