An optimized diagnostic architecture for real-time monitoring of MV networks

Due to the electrical energy market liberalization, the Authority for electrical energy and gas (AEEG) in Italy and the other regulatory organizations in other European countries have concentrated their attention on the quality of the electrical service. One of the aspect of major importance in the definition of the quality of a public service is its continuity. In the aim of regulating this field the Authority has defined some continuity indicators, for example the number of interruptions per year and the cumulate duration of the interruptions per year. Recent statistics on these indicator show that the 80% of the number of interruptions in one year is caused by MV network. For this reason the utilities have started to invest in the research of new methodologies for reducing the inefficiency times. Most of the times they consider new line protection systems and new diagnostic systems. The Authors have just developed a new diagnostic methodology for an on-line management of automated distribution systems. The technique is based on the use of circuital models of the electrical system resulting from the composition of quadripoles. In this way, matrix relations and thus a non linear system can be deduced. The solution of the latter gives as a result the identification of the type of fault, of its characteristic parameters and location. In this paper, after a brief description of the proposed approach, the optimization of some aspects characterising the management of the architecture are presented. The applications are related to phase to earth faults