A Fault Location Method Suitable for Low-Voltage DC Line

Abstract

This paper presents a fault location method suitable for low-voltage DC line. To estimate the fault location of DC lines, a fault location module is designed, and it is connected to each end of the DC lines. When the DC lines fail, the DC circuit breaker gets tripped quickly, and the residual current of the DC line inductance still flows through the fault location module. Considering attenuation of the DC line inductance current, which is a function of the fault distance and fault resistance, the fault location algorithm is established. A simplified DC microgrid model is built by PSCAD/EMTDC, and the proposed method is simulated by MATLAB. The results show that the proposed method can accurately locate the fault point of DC lines. In addition, the proposed method is also verified on a small-scale hardware experiment platform.