A Framework for Wide-area Monitoring of Tree-related High Impedance Faults in Medium-voltage Networks

Wide-area monitoring of tree-related high impedance fault (THIF) efficiently contributes to increase reliability of large-scaled network, since the failure to early location of them may results in critical lines tripping and consequently large blackouts. In the first place, this wide-area monitoring of THIF requires managing the placement of sensors across large power grid network according to THIF detection objective. For this purpose, current paper presents a framework in which sensors are distributed according to a predetermined risk map. The proposed risk map determines the possibility of THIF occurrence on every branch in a power network, based on electrical conductivity of trees and their positions to power lines which extracted from spectral data. The obtained possibility value can be considered as a weight coefficient assigned to each branch in sensor placement problem. The next step after sensors deployment is to on-line monitor based on moving data window. In this on-line process, the received data window is evaluated for obtaining a correlation between low frequency and high frequency components of signal. If obtained correlation follows a specified pattern, received signal is considered as a THIF. Thereafter, if several faulted section candidates are found by deployed sensors, the most likely location is chosen from the list of candidates based on predetermined THIF risk map.