Identification of faulted feeder section in distribution systems using overcurrent information from switching devices

Promptly locating faults in distribution systems plays an essential role in restoring services. Presence of laterals may lead to multiple solutions by impedancebased method. One possible way for quickly identifying the faulted feeder section is to utilize the overcurrent information provided by the switching devices installed in the system. This article presents an enhanced method that identifies the faulted feeder section based on the information from switching devices and the network structure. The proposed method is general, applicable to presence of a single-fault or multi-faults, and suitable for single-or multi-source networks. The advantages over existing methods are elimination of iterative steps for multi-source systems. Case studies have demonstrated that the method is effective in identifying the faulted section.