Wide area measurements based fault detection and location method for transmission lines

Electric power grids are critical infrastructure for delivering energy from generation stations to load centers. To maximize utilization of assets, it is desirable to increase the power transferred over transmission systems. Reliable protection of transmission systems is essential for safeguarding the integrity and reliability of the power grid. Distance protection is the most widely used scheme for protecting transmission lines. Most existing protection systems use local measurements to make a decision while pilot protection is used in some circumstances. Distance protection may fail under stressed operating conditions, which could lead to cascading faults. This paper proposes a system integrity protection scheme by utilizing wide area measurements. The scheme partitions the system into subnetworks or protection zones and employs current measurements to derive a fault identification vector indicating the faulted zone. Then the fault location is pinpointed based on wide area measurements and network data. The proposed method is able to deal with multiple, simultaneous faults, and is applicable to both transposed and untransposed lines. Evaluation studies based on simulation studies are presented.