Arc flash fault detection in wind farm collection feeders based on current waveform analysis

High impedance faults (HIFs) are easy to occur in collective feeders in wind farms and may cause the cascading of wind generators tripping. This kind of faults is difficult to be detected by traditional relay or fuse due to the limited fault current values and the situation is worse in wind farms. The mostly adopted HIF detection algorithms are based on the 3rd harmonic characteristic of the fault zero-sequence currents, whereas these 3rd harmonics are very easy to be polluted by wind power back-to-back converters. In response to this problem, the typical harmonic characteristic of HIF arc flash based on Mayr's arc model is first analyzed, and the typical fault waveforms of HIF in wind farm are presented. Then the performance of the harmonic based HIF detection algorithm is discussed, and a novel detection algorithm is proposed from the viewpoint of time domain, focusing on the convex and concave characteristic of zero-sequence current at zero-crossing points. A HIFs detection (HIFD) prototype implementing the proposed algorithm has been developed. The sensitivity and security of the algorithm are proved by field data and RTDS experiments.