New technique for fault location in distribution systems using sincrophasor voltages

This paper proposes a new fault location technique for distribution networks using synchrophasor voltages from Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs). The proposed method has the ability to work with data acquired from a minimum of only two PMUs. Fault point is calculated using the bus admittance matrix along with the pre- and during-fault voltage phasors. At first it is obtained the bus nearest to the fault, then an iterative process is employed to find the exact fault point. The main innovative aspects of the presented approach are: (i) the technique is able to indicate the faulted branch, not only the nearest bus, (ii) current phasors are not necessary, (iii) no fault type classification is required. The performance of the proposed method is validated using a real 134 bus feeder modeled in ATP-EMTP. The results demonstrate a robust performance against several faults conditions.