An extended fault location formulation for unbalanced distribution feeders with distributed generation

Abstract

This paper presents an extended impedance-based formulation for fault location on deregulated electric power distribution systems. Distribution feeders are inherently unbalanced and traditionally radial. Deregulated distribution systems can have distributed generation, which changes the fault period power flow and decreases the accuracy of current state-of-the-art impedance based fault location formulations. Therefore, in this paper an extended impedance-based formulation is proposed. The work includes the formulation analytical development as simulation test results. Comparative test results are also presented, highlighting the formulations increased accuracy compared with current impedance-based fault location techniques.