High resistive zero-crossing instant faults detection and location scheme based on wavelet analysis

Abstract This paper proposes an effective high resistive zero-crossing fault detection scheme based on transient signals obtained at single-end of the transmission line. The proposed scheme implements wavelet transform to provide time resolution for the high frequency components of the current fault transients. These signals are decomposed into their modal components: aerial and ground modes and, taking into account the fault inception angle; it implements one of both modes to detect faults in the power system. The proposed scheme also provides the distance to fault using the wavelet modulus maxima (WMM) technique. The performance of the proposed scheme has been evaluated in a 132 kV transmission system modeled in PSCAD/EMTDC, and results have been presented considering total harmonic distortion of voltage (THDV) waveform and for varying ground resistivity, fault resistance and fault inception angle. The response time of the proposed algorithm has been compared with Fourier and differential equations algorithms and conventional wavelet transform scheme.