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SINGLE AND DOUBLE ENDED TRAVELLING-WAVE FAULT LOCATION ON A MV SYSTEM Ricardo J. 0. Carvalho and Elisete T. Pereira

D W P Thomas and C Christopoulos

The University of Nottingham UK ABSTRACT Single and double ended fault location for MV distribution systems, based on the traveling waves theory, is presented. The proposed scheme operates on the incident transient currents traveling from the fault point and measured at either one or two substations on the transmission line. In spite of the complexity introduced by the many discontinuities created by the snb-feeders in the system, the results of several observed faults on a 23.8 kV system demonstrate the viability of traveling wave technique for distribution systems. INTRODUCTION AULT location using fault transients and based on traveling waves theory has been successfully applied as a unit or double ended scheme on extra highvoltage (ehv) transmission lines [l]. A single end fault location scheme is also possible when the current and voltage transients are available at the relaying point [2]. A single ended fault location scheme has its origin in Type-A offline traveling-wave fault locators, which, inject a signal and fault locate from the time it takes the signal to reflect back from the fault location. It has also been shown [3] that a single ended fault location scheme is possible using just the transient fault currents on an ehv system. In this paper the application of these traveling-wave fault location schemes to a MV distribution system are investigated. Fault transient signals are high frequency signals superimposed on the steady state voltage and currents. The transient signals can be extracted by applying a suitable high pass filter. In this work the transient currents are obtained via a current probe with a high pass transfer characteristic attached to the secondary circuit of the relay current transformers as shown in Fig. 1. The normal relay MV current transformers have been found to have a high bandwidth in excess of 500 kHz and, therefore, can be used directly without modification. The data is sampled at a 1.25 MHz sampling rate with an 8 bit resolution. This sample rate provides a potential resolution of 240m for either a double ended or a single ended fault location scheme. Two locations for the fault locators were chosen on the 23.8 kV Centrais Electricas de Santa Catarina (CELESC) distribution system. The two locations enabled two feeders to be simultaneously monitored (BND06 and BND07).

The University of Blumenau Brazil

Current Transformer
*

v \

23.8 kV line
.....................

Transient

Recorder

r l
relay

10-100m

Figure 1 Fault recording instrumentationarrangement Both feeders originate from the same busbar of substation Blumenau I1 in the Itoupavazinha quarter of Blumenau, Santa Catarina. These are important feeders supplying significant industrial load and over 8000 consumers. Also connected to the substation busbar is another feeder (BNDO5) and a capacitor bank for voltage compensation. The first travelling-wave fault locator was installed at Blumenau I1 substaion. After diverging from Blumenau I1 substation BND06 and BND07 cross over (without physically connecting) at the centre of the town Pomerode. The second fault locator was installed at the crossing point of the two feeders in Pomerode as shown in fig. 2. Location of travelling wave fault recorder 1

F .

BND06

wave fault recorder 2

Blumenau I1 substation

BND07

I'

Figure 2 Circuit schematic for the 23.8 kV feeders BND06 and BNDO7 from Blumenau 11 substation. The distance from Blumenan I1 substation to Pomerode via the root of BND06 is 15.3km and via the root of BND07 is 15.2 km. Using the time of amval of transients from capacitor bank switching (measured using GPS time reference to within 100 ns.) the transient propagation velocity was observed to be

0 2004 The Institution of Electrical Engineers. Printed and published by the IEE, Michael Faraday House, Six Hills Way, Stevenage, SGI 2AY

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approximately 90% of the speed of light. This is thought to be due to the extra line length caused by the line sagging between poles.

The fault transient waves propagate around the system as shown by the Bewley lattice diagram in Fig. 3. The fault location can be found from one of two methods. Double ended In the double ended method, two fault recorders are used. For the system given in Fig. 3 there would he one'recorder at substation A and one at substation B. The fault location is given for faults between substations A and B by comparing the time of arrival of the initial transients at each substation (I, and fz). Accurate timing is provided from GPS receivers in the fault recorder equipment. The fault distance x from substation A is then
L L

THEORY
Transients on three phase transmission lines can he considered to propagate as three independent voltage and current modes [4]. The relationship between the phase voltages Vph and currents I,, and the modal , and current I , is given by voltages V

[v,

(2) where [SI and [Q] are the voltage and current transformation matricies. Each modal transient voltage is related to the modal current by the surge impedance of that mode Z, such that
(4) where the sign depends on the direction of propagation of the transients with respect to the defined direction of positive current.
= fZJ,

1 [SI-' IV,h I [Im 1= [el-'[IPA1

=

(1)

where L is the total line length and propagation velocity.

is the transient

v,

If a travelling wave transient on a transmission line, due to a fault or switching event, is incident at a substation husbar as shown in Fig. 2 then there will he transmitted and reflected transients created as shown. Initially on the line from which the transients originated there will be both an incident and reflected transient.

Single ended In the single ended method only one receiver is used and for substation A the fault location is found from identifying the time of arrival of the incident waves from the fault location t2 and tS. This is usually achieved by cross-correlating the reflected wave amplitude with the incident wave amplitudes [2]. The fault distance from substation A is then

(7)
Once the voltage and current transient amplitudes are known the incident S, and reflected S, waves on the faulted line (line 1) can be found from

t-t-7F-B
distance

Fault

For this work the cross-correlation scheme can not be directly as, from (8) and (9), the resolution of the incident and reflected waves requires the measurement of the transient voltage. The equipment used in this project only measures the transient current. At Pomerode there is also no discontinuity in the lines to provide a reflection as it is only a convenient location where the lines cross, therefore, initially there will be no reflected wave (Sz = 0).
While the traveling wave phenomena is well behaved on ehv transmission lines [3], a much more complex situation appears in a distribution system due to the discontinuities introduced by the numerous sub-feeders that are characteristic of the system and the highly interconnected nature of a distribution system. The discontinuities may occur between the end of the line and the fault point, adding several reflections to the transient waves arising from the fault. There may also he more than one path for the propagation of the transients between a fault and a substation. An alternative technique for single ended traveling wave fault location is to use the frequency spectra of the

time
Figure 3 Bewely lattice diagram showing propagation of fault transients between system busbars A and B

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fault transients. It was shown by Swift [4] that a short circuit fault on a line with low source impedance would give rise to transients with a resonant frequency given by:

where r is the time for a transient to propagate from the fault to the supply busbars. In this paper both time domain and frequency domain single ended fault location schemes will he investigated. RESULTS Once the two fault recorders were installed a series of tests were performed where the circuit breakers to loads were opened and closed within a few seconds and the location of the transient found through the double ended fault location scheme (the single ended scheme could not be tested as it requires a significant transient reflection at the fault location). It was found that the transient propagation velocity was about 90% of the speed of light. This may be due to errors in the distances quoted in the circuit diagram provided by CELESC or the sagging of the lines . Using the propagation velocity of 0 . 9 ~ the double ended approach appeared to provide the expected accuracy if both recorders tripped. For small transients the error could be marginally greater. The threshold appears to be for transients less than about 80 kVA (7 kohms fault impedance) were difficult to resolve. Typical results are given in table I .

in fig. 4. It can be seen that the transients are very complex and it is difficult to identify any features specific to the fault location. Using (IO) there should be a resonant frequency of about 10 kHr in the transients. Figure 5 shows the frequency spectra of the transients compared with a lightning strike and capacitor switching transients. There does appear to be a significant resonance at 8.8 lcHz and this would indicate a fault location of 15.3 km from Blumenau I1 substation (u=O.Sc) or 100 m beyond Pomerode fault locator. More results are needed to confirm that the correct fault resonance can be identified from the other resonances present. Using this equipment the transient voltage is not known but it can be assumed to be negligible at Blumenau I1 as there are SVC capacitors attached to the busbar. Thus from (8) and (9)
= (11) The cross-correlation function of S, and S, for the fault transients compared with that deduced for the lightning and capacitor switching transients are given in fig. 6. A short circuit fault will have a negative traveling wave reflection coefficient so that a trough in the crosscorrelation is expected at the time of arrival of the reflected wave from the fault. The x axis is scaled in distance from Blumenau I1 substation (i.e. d 2 u ) to help the identification of the fault location. There is a significant trough at 15 km as would be expected, however, more results are also needed to ensure that the correct trough in the cross-correlation function can always identify.

s, s,

Standard

450 75
A5 .I

, # N o trigger, * only one trigger at Blumenau I1

From table 1. it can be concluded that the double ended scheme can locate events to the expected accuracy. On the 41h June 2003 a car accident brought down the supporting poles for BND-06 and BND-07 300m from the Pomerode travelling wave fault locator. The fault transients were received by both the Blumenau and Pomerode fault locators. The GPS time stamp at 12:47:50 for the received fault transients gave the fault location as 200m from Pomerode (14.9 km from Blumenau I1 on BND-07 circuit). The phase-a fault transients received at Blumenau I1 substation on BND-07 compared with the healthy system transients due to a nearby lightning strike the previous day and circuit breaker operation are shown

45

I 5.2 1 2.6 I 7 7 ,., I 2.5

j 5.2

I# 17 , .4 . I 3.3

I 0.2 I# I * 1 0.7

- fault

.__ _ Switch Cap.

Lightning

Figure 4 Fault transients on BND-07 at Blumenau II substation compared with lightning and Capacitor switching transients

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techniques that can identify the important features in the transients.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from CELESC in Blumenau (Brazil), providing accessto its MV system all necessary data of its MV system.

REFERENCES
[I] Roger Jensen and Philip Gale, At last, LocatefauNs by recording traveling waves, ELECTRICAL WORLD, February 1996. [2] P.A. Crossley and P.G. McLaren, Distance protection based on traveling waves, IEEE, PAS102, no. 9, September 1983. [3] David W. P. Thomas, Richard E. Batty, Christos Christopoulos and Anding Wang, Y novel transmission line voltage measuring method, IEEE, Trans. on Instrumentation and Measurement, Vol. 47, no. 5, October 1998. [4] G W Swift The spectra o f fault induced transients ; IEEE trans. Power apparatus and systems, Vol. PAS-98, 1979 pp 940-947.

- fault

. . . . Cap. switch - lightning

Figure 5 Spectraof fault transients compared with lightning and capacitor switching transients
I
I I I

15 km trough

-0.2

I 10

I5

- favlf
-

Dirmre (km1

. . . . Lighming
Cap. switch

Figure 6 Cross-correlation of reflected transients with incident transients for a fault compared with that deduced from lightning and capacitor switching transients.

C0N CLU S ION S

Travelling wave fault location on a distribution system has been investigated. The transients recorded have a complex structure due to the complex nature of a distribution feeder circuit. From calibration tests the transient propagation velocity appears to be 90% of the velocity of light. This may be due to errors in the circuit diagram provided by CELESC. Accurate double ended fault location appears to he possible provided significant transients are generated (fault impedance must be below 7 ohms). Accurate single ended fault location may also be possible but further work is necessary to develop