A New Transient Impedance-Based Algorithm for Earth Fault Detection in Medium Voltage Networks

摘要

This paper presents a new earth-fault detection algorithm for unearthed (isolated) and compensated neutral medium voltage (MV) networks. The proposed algorithm is based on capacitance calculation from transient impedance and dominant transient frequency. The Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) method is used to determine the dominant transient frequency. The values of voltage and current earth modes are calculated in the period of the dominant transient frequency, then the transient impedance can be determined, from which we can calculate the earth capacitance. The calculated capacitance gives an indication about if the feeder is faulted or not. The algorithm is less dependent on the fault resistance and the faulted feeder parameters; it mainly depends on the background network. The network is simulated by ATP/EMTP program. Several different fault conditions are covered in the simulation process, different fault inception angles, fault locations and fault resistances.