A fault section location technique for distribution systems based on wide-area fault information fuzzy clustering analysis

In order to realize smart distribution system self-healing control, fault section location is the precondition. Neutral ineffectively earthed power system is adopted as the distribution system in most areas of central Europe, Eastern Europe and China. For neutral ineffectively earthed power systems, fault information are too week to be detected. Fault section location is hard to implement in distribution systems due to the complex system structure and the variable operating mode. A Fault section location technique for distribution systems based on wide-area fault information fuzzy clustering analysis is proposed in this paper. The multidimensional fault features from the FTUs of the distribution systems are used to realize the fault section location. Based on the rule that the fault information is flow from the fault point to the busbar, the FTUs are divided into fault group and non-fault group by fuzzy clustering algorithm. By searching the transmission route of the fault information, the fault section is the fault information source section. The fairly high precision of the proposed fault section location method was verified by PSCAD/EMTDC simulation results. Since the setting value is not needed in this study, the proposed method is adaptive to the variation of the operating mode.