Deep Learning-Based Method for the Robust and Efficient Fault Diagnosis in the Electric Power System

The robust and efficient diagnosis of power quality disturbances (PQDs) in electric power systems (EPSs) is one of the most important steps to protect a power system with minimal damage. However, the conventional fault detection methods used in the EPS mainly rely on heavy mathematical calculations, resulting in delayed actions against PQDs. To overcome these limitations, deep learning has been recently proposed to diagnose PQDs in the EPS, which allows the extraction of features from a huge amount of data to delineate subtle differences in electrical waveforms under faulty conditions. In this study, a deep learning-based diagnostic method for PQDs was proposed by exploiting a convolutional neural network (CNN) and simulated realistic three-phase voltage and current waveforms obtained from the PSCAD/EMTDC software. Specifically, PQDs related to various faults in EPSs were assessed to demonstrate the applicability of the deep-learning method as a fault diagnostic method. The proposed CNN model, trained by end-to-end learning and supervised learning approaches, successfully classified the type and location of the faults. Moreover, we found that simulated data obtained at the sampling rate of 50 Hz also accurately diagnosed the faults with an accuracy of over 99%; therefore, the proposed method could be a potential diagnostic tool in practice.