Single end low voltage arcing fault location using time based formulation

Due to utilizing fundamental frequency, impedance based fault location methods to date are able to locate only permanent and linear faults. The duration of arc in low and medium voltage systems can be as short as a quarter of a cycle. This amount of time which is normal for intermittent faults is not enough for fundamental frequency based fault location algorithms. Therefore, available methods are not applicable for intermittent arcing fault location. In this paper, a novel method is proposed for arcing fault location utilizing time based formulation considering the short duration of the faults. The advantage of the proposed method over available methods is its capability for locating faults using fewer samples which is suitable for arcing faults as well as normal faults in the network. The validity of the devised algorithm is studied within the PSCAD-EMTDC environment. The produced data has been employed for the fault location algorithm and the results show a good accuracy for arcing faults.