Double-Circuit transmission-line fault location utilizing synchronized current phasors

Fault location is considered as one of the essential techniques enabling a smart grid. This paper presents a novel fault location approach for double-circuit transmission lines. Various existing algorithms usually require measurements recorded from one or two terminals of the faulted line. However, when such measurements are not available, these methods are not applicable. To fill this gap, this paper proposes a fault location method by harnessing current measurements from one or more branches, which may not be necessarily taken from the faulted section. The currents from multiple branches are synchronized and can be obtained from phasor measurement units installed in the system. The bus impedance matrix technique is exploited to develop the new method. The shunt capacitance of the line is fully considered by utilizing the distributed parameter line model. The network data are assumed to be available. When multiple synchronized current measurements are available, an optimal estimator capable of identifying possible bad measurement data and, thus, further enhancing the fault location is also proposed. Quite accurate results have been achieved based on simulation studies.