Wavelet based fault location on power transmission lines using real-world travelling wave data

The majority of studies undertaken in the power systems field use simulators that represent the primary plant using digitally simulated models. This includes Electromagnetic Transient based simulators, which are normally used to evaluate the operating performance of travelling wave-based fault locators and more recently travelling wave-based protection. However, the difficulty in adequately modelling the travelling waves caused by an insulator flashover resulting from a lightning storm must be recognised. The availability of real-world fault data, captured by a high sampling rate travelling wave-based fault locator, is still relatively rare and this reduces the confidence in the use of simulators to model fault initiated travelling wave behaviour and to fully evaluate travelling wave-based protection. The employment of real-world data obtained from various transmission lines smooths the path to more accurate fault location solutions. This paper concentrates on double-ended travelling wave-based fault location techniques. We consider four fault location techniques namely, time-domain, impedance, visual inspection and a novel wavelet-based technique. The time-domain solution is implemented by the industrial collaborator who provided data for this research. Visual inspection provides fault location through manual adjustments and visual observations of the signals. The accuracy of the above methods was investigated by examining their error range.