Fault Location for Distribution Systems with Distributed Generations without Using Source Impedances

Fault location reveals the exact information needed for utility crews to timely and promptly perform maintenance and system restoration. This paper proposes a new impedance-based fault location algorithm using sparse voltage measurements to identify the location of a fault. Depending on the availability of source currents at substations and distributed generations (DG), the algorithm has three variants. It is assumed that the network topology and parameters are known. Information of fault types, fault resistances, source impedances, and prefault measurements is not needed to determine the fault location. The proposed algorithm is validated by evaluation studies performed on the modified IEEE 34 Node Test Feeder with over 45% DG penetration.