High Impedance Fault Detection of Distribution Network by Phasor Measurement Units

Mohsen Ghalei Monfared Zanjani, Hossein Kazemi Karegar, Hasan Ashrafi Niaki, Mina Ghalei Monfared Zanjani

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Shahid Beheshti University (SBU), Tehran, Iran..

DOI: 10.4236/sgre.2013.43036                

Abstract

This paper proposes a new algorithm for High Impedance Fault (HIF) detection using Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU). This type of faults is difficult to detect by over current protection relays because of low fault current. In this paper, an index based on phasors change is proposed for HIF detection. The phasors are measured by PMU to obtain the square summation of errors. Two types of data are used for error calculation. The first one is sampled data and the second one is estimated data. But this index is not enough to declare presence of a HIF. Therefore another index introduces in order to distinguish the load switching from HIF. Second index utilizes 3rd harmonic current angle because this number of harmonic has a special behaviour during HIF. The verification of the proposed method is done by different simulation cases in EMTP/MATLAB.

Keywords

Fault Detection; High Impedance Fault; Phasor Measurement Units

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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