Research on fault location based on PMU for multi-source distribution network

Accurate fault location is beneficial for the stability of power distribution network. With the access of distributed energy resource, such as distributed generations, electric vehicles, controllable load and so on, traditional fault and protection device has been unable to completely adopt to the new situation of distribution network protection, which requires new technologies and devices. In this paper, a new method based on phasor measurement unit, termed PMU or synchrophasor, is proposed to locate the fault in the multi-source distribution network. The location method uses the voltage and current information of PMU on one terminal to iterating every line segment, the candidate faults and its fault distance are calculated. By means of voltage phase relationship between fault voltage and measured voltage of PMUs on two terminals to get the actual fault location and eliminate the pseudo fault locations, with the characteristic of high-precision and clock synchronization in PMU. Finally, the simulation results show that the location method has high position accuracy in the multi-source distribution network by the algorithm simulation analysis based on Matlab/Simulink platform. The method can satisfy different types of fault with simply installing PMUs only on the two terminals of the circuit. And still has high location accuracy with the influence of high DG penetration and high resistance faults.