A novel fault localization method for asymmetric phase‐to‐ground faults on onshore wind farm collector lines without phasor measurement

Abstract

Abstract Existing fault localization methods for power lines are not applicable to the collector line in onshore wind farms due to the dense access of complex power supplies. Therefore, a fault localization method based on equivalent zero‐sequence injection current (ZIC) is proposed for asymmetric phase‐to‐ground faults on collector lines. Firstly, the idea of load shifting is adopted to generalize the theory of equivalent injection current (EIC) to multi‐terminal and meshed lines. Then, considering features of the zero‐sequence network of wind farms, the EIC theory on two‐terminal and multi‐terminal lines is applied to zero‐sequence networks, and thus faulty areas, faulty sub‐lines, and fault distance can be determined. Attractively, the element correlation in node impedance matrices of zero‐sequence networks is derived from the network branch‐addition process, and the numerical characteristic of matrix elements is further revealed from the particularity of wind farms, based on which root‐mean‐square (RMS) calculation of ZIC can be improved to enable the localization without phasor measurement. Verification results prove that this proposed method can accurately realize the fault localization independent of wind turbine generators with a few measurement points, and the applicability of collector lines with line branches is also considered; additionally, only voltage RMS needs to be measured.

Keywords

• fault location
• power overhead lines
• power system faults
• asymmetric phase‐to‐ground fault
• branch addition
• collector line