The application of fault location system for 220kV overhead power line in China

Reliable power supply is considered more and more important for today´s infrastructure. If power line faults occur, they could give damage to the facility that fail the power supply quality, so that the fault point must be located, investigated and repaired quickly as possible. Since the length of overhead transmission line is long, say several decades to hundreds kilometers, fault location system has been employed and utilized. J-Power Systems (JPS) has provided the fault location system for overhead power transmission line since early 1980s, which locates the fault point based on the distribution pattern of the induced current detected by the current sensors on the ground wire. By applying the combination of EMTP (Electro Magnetic Transients Program) simulation and the neural network pattern recognizing technology, the located fault point is achieved narrower than the sensor to sensor section. Typical fault location system consists of one Master Station (MS) which has a personal computer with fault location software and communication device to communicate with Local Stations (LS), several LS installed on tower which are driven by solar panel and battery, incorporate processing circuit boards and communication device to communicate with MS, and several current sensors which are installed on ground wire and whose signal cables are connected to LS. Except for few cases JPS has not provided the fault location system in overseas. Recently the authors achieved to apply the fault location system to Chinese power supply network, by studying and considering to make the system improved to adapt the local material, local telecommunication network, local installation procedure, and so on. This paper describes the fault location system for 220kV overhead power line in China, designed, manufactured and implemented by authors.