Investigating effects of neutral wire and grounding in distribution systems with faults

In some applications, like fault analysis, fault location, power quality studies, safety analysis, loss analysis, etc., knowing the neutral wire and ground currents and voltages could be of particular interest. In order to investigate the effects of neutrals and system grounding on the operation of distribution feeders with faults, a hybrid short circuit algorithm is generalized. In this novel use of the technique, the neutral wire and assumed ground conductor are explicitly represented. Results obtained from several case studies using the IEEE 34-node test network are presented and discussed.