Electric Machines And Power Systems

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A REFINED GENETIC ALGORITHM FOR FAULT

SECTION ESTIMATION IN POWER SYSTEMS USING
THE TIME SEQUENCE INFORMATION OF CIRCUIT
BREAKERS

FUSHUAN WEN & ZHENXIANG HAN

To cite this article: FUSHUAN WEN & ZHENXIANG HAN (1996) A REFINED GENETIC
ALGORITHM FOR FAULT SECTION ESTIMATION IN POWER SYSTEMS USING THE TIME
SEQUENCE INFORMATION OF CIRCUIT BREAKERS, Electric Machines And Power Systems,
24:8, 801-815, DOI: 10.1080/07313569608955711

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07313569608955711

Published online: 07 May 2007.

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A REFINED GENETIC ALGORITHM FOR
FAULT SECTION ESTIMATION IN POWER
SYSTEMS USING THE TIME SEQUENCE
INFORMATION OF CIRCUIT BREAKERS

FUSHUAN WEN and ZHENXIANG HAN

Department of Electrical Engineering
Zhejiang University
Hangzhou, 310027
The People's Republic of China

ABSTRACf

A new method to fault section estimation in power systems by using the time sequence
information of tripped circuit breakers is presented. The main contributions of this
paper include the following three aspects: a. the mathematical model of the fault
section estimation problem by using the time sequence information of the tripped
circuit breakers at the actuating time zone of any protective relay is proposed for the
first time; b. an efficient method to identify the faulty subnetworks is developed by
using the information from circuit breakers. In this way the. fault diagnosis can be
fulftlled in a very short time for large scale power systems and can be implemented on-
line; c. a new method based upon Refined Genetic A1goritbm(RGA) is used to solve the
fault section estimation problem. Test results for there sample power systems bave
shown that the RGA method can find multiple optimal solutions directly and
efficiently in a single run.

1 INlRODUCTION

Fault section estimation is to identify faulted components in a power system by using

information on operations of protective relays and circuit breakers. Several methods
bave so far been developed, sucb as the logic-based method[Sekine et aI., 1992], expert
systems[Fukui and Kawakami, 1986; Komai et aI.• 1992] and artificial neural
networks [Tanaka, 1989; Oyama, 1993J. Of these methods, the expert system based
method is the most successful. Up to now, many kinds of expert systems have been
developed using the conventional knowledge representation and inference procedure
such as rule based[Fukui and Kawakami, 1986] and model based[Komai et aI., 1992J
approaches. In order to achieve precise inference especially in the complex fault cases,
the expert system based on production rules must involve a great number of rules
describing the complex protection system behaviors. Maintenance of the large
knowledge base becomes very difficult. On the other hand. the model based system is
easy to maintain, but the inference process is time consuming.

In recent years, the application of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) to the fault section
estimation bas been an active researcb area. Broadly speaking, the proposed methods
Request reprints from Fushuan Wen. Manuscript received in final form April 19. 1995.

Electric Machines and Power Svsterns, 24:801-815. 1996 801

Copyright Cl 1996 Taylor & Francis
0731-356X/96 $12.00 + .00
802 F. WEN AND Z. HAN

can be placed into two categories. The first kind is to treat the fault section estimation
problem as a classification problem, and use the appropriate ANNs such as the BP
model or the Kohonen model to train and estimate[Tanaka, 19891. It is very difficult to
reasonably specify a sample set, so the correctness of the estimation result can not be
guaranteed theoretically. The second kind is to formulate the fault section estimation
problem as a 0-1 integer programming problem, and uses the appropriate ANNs such
as the Boltzmann machine to solve it, for example [Oyama, 19931. Recently, we have
developed the 0-1 integer programming model of the fault section estimation problem
using information from protective relays and circuit breakerspen and Han, 1993;
Wen and Han, 19941, and have presented three methods, i.e., Simulated Molecular
Evolutionwen and Han, 19931, Simple Genetic Algorithm (SGA) and Simulated
Annealing Algorithrn[Wen and Han, 19941, to solve the 0-1 programming problem. It
is shown by many simulation results that the developed mathematical model is correct
and the proposed three methods are suitable and efficient, and can find multiple global
optimal solutions directly in a single run, and are of great promise for on-line fault
diagnosis. Of these three methods, SGA appears to be the best in terms of
computational efficiency and storage requirement. This paper extends the research
work presented in w e n and E b , 1993; Wen and Han, 19941 in the following three
aspects:
a. The mathematical model of the fault section estimation problem by using the time
sequence information of the tripped circuit breakers at the actuating time zones of any
protective relay is proposed for the first time. The objective in developing such a
mathematical model is to seek a fault section estimation method for some power
systems in which tihe informiation of the protective relays is not available or is
incomplete. In many power systems of some developing countries, the information of
protective relays can not be obtained on-line at the dispatching centers, so it is
necessary to develop a fault diagnosis method by using the real-time information of
circuit breakers only. This paper is the first attempt to solve this problem.
b. An efficient method to identify subnetworks which include all possible faulty sections
is developed by using a real-time network configuration determination method. When
faults occur in a power system, the protective relays corresponding to the faulty sections
should actuate to take the faulty sections out of operation. In other words, the faulty
sections will be disconnected from the healthy part of the power system after the
operation of the corresponding protective relays and circuit breakers. Thus, some
isolated subnetworks will be formed which include all faulty sections and have no
generators, and we can restrict the fault section estimation problem to these
subnetworks only. In this way, the size of the problem can be greatly reduced, and very
fast computation can be achieved.

c. Several schemes of Refined Genetic Algorithms (RGA) are adopted to solve the fault
section estimation problem, ancl the simulation results of three sample power systems
show that RGA can be more efficient than SGA and can find mu1tiple optimal solutions
directly and efficiently in a single run.

2 THE MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF THE FAULT SECTION ESTIMATION

PROBLEM

The fault section estimation problem is to find the most probable hypothesis that can
explain the alarm information. Mathematically, it can be formulated as a 0-1 integer
programming problemwen and Han, 1993; Wen and Han, 19941. When only the
FAULT ESTIMATION IN POWER SYSTEMS 803

information of circuit breakers is available, the fault section estimation problem can be
expressed as:
n n n
Minimize E(S) = ~ , X ~ I-Cc:: $(s)I
where:
S --- n-dimension state vector of sectiions (n is the number of sections).
Si --- the i-th element of vector S ( O:normal, 1:fault).
t --- the sequence number of actuati,ng time zones of protective relays. For example,
t=1,2,3 represent the actuating time zones of the main protective relay, the primary
backup protective relay and the seconthry backup protective relay, respectively.
nt --- the number of actuating time zones of protective relays.
n, --- the number of relays.
n, --- the number of circuit breakers.
c:) --- the state of the j-th circuit breaker at the end of the t-th actuating time zone
(O:close, 1:open).
- (0
Ci, (S) --- the state function of the j-th circuit breaker determined by the i-th relay at
the end of the t-th actuating time zonle (0:if it should be closed, 1:if it should be open).
If the state of the j-th circuit breaker at the end of the t-th actuating time zone is not
-(0
controlled by the i-th relay, then we set Ci, (s)=c~).
Now, we use a simple example as shown in Figure 1 to illustrate how to determine
-(t)
Ci, (S).

FIGURE 1. A simple example

The system as shown in Fig.1 consists of 5 sections, 15 protective relays and 6 circuit
breakers. The 5 sections are A, L1, B, L2 and C, and are denoted by S1 - S5
sequentially. The 6 circuit breakers (CB1-CB6) are denoted by C1 - Cg sequentially.
The 15 protective relays are An, Bm, Cm, LlAm, LlBm, L2Bm, L2Cm7LlAp, LlBp,
L2Bp, L2Cp, LlAs, LlBs, L2Bs and L2Cs. Here, m, p, s denote main protective relays,
primary backup protective relays andl secondary backup protective relays, respectively.
Am, Bm and Cm are main protectivt: relays of busbars A, B and C, respectively, and

TABLE 1. The Actuating Logics of :Main Protective Relays

I Relay I Actuating logic I

Name
Am If a fault occurred on A, then Am should actuate to trip CB 1 and CB2
Bm If a fault occurred on B, then Bm should actuate to trip CB3 and CB4
Cm If a fault occurred on C, then Cm should actuate to trip CB5 and CB6
Ll Am If a fault occurred on L1, then L l Am should actuate to trip CB2
LlBm If a fault occurred on L1, then LlBm should actuate to trip CB3
L2Bm If a fault occurred on L2, then L2Bm should actuate to trip CB4
L2Cm If a fault occurred on L2, then L2Cm should actuate to trip CB5
804 F. WEN AND Z. HAN

the other 12 protective relays are all line protective relays. For example, L2Bp
represents the primary backup protective relays of line L2 at the terminal of busbar B.
The actuating logics of all main protective relays and all backup protective relays are
listed in Table 1 and Table 2, respectively. The circuit breaker state functions
corresponding to the actuating logics of all protective relays are listed in Table 3. It is
shown from Table 3 that more than one corresponding circuit breaker state functions
may exist for a protective relay.

TABLE 2. The Actuating Logics of Backup Protective Relays

Relay Actuating logic

Name
LIAp If a fault occurred on LI and CB2 did not trip during the actuating time
zone ofLIAm then LIAo should actuate to trio CB2
LIBp If a fault occurred on LI and CB3 did not trip during the actuating time
zone ofLIBm then LIBo should actuate to trio CB3
L2Bp If a fault occurred on L2 and CB4 did not trip during the actuating time
zone of L2Bm then L2Bo should actuate to trio CB4
L2Cp If a fault occurred on L2 and CB5 did not trip during the actuating time
zone of L2Cm then L2Co should actuate to trio CB5
LIAs If a fault occurred on B , and CB3 did not trip during the actuating time
zones of LIAm and LIAp,
OR
If a fault occurred on L2, and both CB3 and CB4 did not trip during the
actuating time zones ofLIAm and LIAp,
THEN
LIAs should actuate to trip CB2
LIBs If a fault occurred on A , and CB2 did not trip during the actuating time
zones ofLIBm and LIBp, then LIBs should actuate to trip CB3
L2Bs If a fault occurred on C , and CB5 did not trip during the actuating time
zones of L2Bm and L2Bp. then L2Bs should actuate to trio CB4
L2Cs If a fault occurred on B , and CB4 did not trip during the actuating time
zones of L2Cm and L2Cp,
OR
If a fault occurred on LI, and both CB3 and CB4 did not trip during the
actuating time zones of L2Cm and L2Cp,
0

THEN ,
L2Cs should actuate to trip CB5

Since every variable in Equation (I) takes the value of, 1 or 0, the fault section
estimation problem is a 0-1 integer programming problem. Taking this characteristic
into account, we can simplify Equation (1) as follow:

E(S) = !!!Iejl) -C~:~(S)I

1=1 i=1 j=l

~~~
LLL[Cjl) -d:~(s)]
2
=
1=1 i=l j=1

=!!![ejO -2ejl)C::~(S)+C::~(S)]
1=1 i=1 j=l .

(2)
FAULT ESTIMATION IN POWER SYSTEMS 805

Because the first term at the right hand side of Equation (2) is independent of S" they
are constants and can be omitted from the objective function. Thus we can get,

£(S) = !!![1-2Cjt)]d~(S) (3)

1=1 i=J j=1

Min f(S) is equivalent to Min E(S).

TABLE 3. The Circuit Breaker State Functions Corresponding to All Relays

Relay Relay The circuit breaker stale functions

sequence name
number
1 Am (I)
CI.I(S) =S,
(I)
d J2(S) =S,
2 Bm C 2,3(S) = S. C~~~ (S) = S.
3 Cm (1) (I)
C3,S(S) = S. C 3 6(S) = S.
4 LlAm (I)
C 4,2(S) = So
5 LlBm (I)
CS,3(S) =So
6 L2Bm
'd~~(S) =S
7 L2Cm (I)
C7,S(S)::;: S4
8 LlAp d~)2 (S) = S2r1-c~1)1
9 LlBp d~)3 (S) = S2[1- C~I) 1
(2)
10 L2Bp C IO,4(S)=S4 1- C(I)4
11 L2Cp (2)
C lI,s(S) =S4 1- C~I)
C 12,2 (S) = 1- 1- S3[ I-C~2)lHl-S 4[ I_C~2)][ I_C~2)]}
12 LlAs (3)

13 LlBs
13,3 (S) -- S I 1- C(2)
C(3) 2
14 L2Bs (3)
C I4,4(S) = S S 1- C(2)
S
15 L2Cs
J
c~i. S(S) = 1- {1- S 3[1- C~2) lH1- S 1- C~2)][ 1- C~2) n
In Genetic Algorithms[Goldberg. 1989; Davis, 1991]. the fitness function (i.e., the
objective function) is maximized and positive. so the following fitness function is used
to solve the fault section estimation problem by Genetic Algorithms.

£' (S) = W - ! ! ! [1- 2Cjt) ]C~:~(S) (4)

t=l i=1 pi

where. W is specified as a very large positive constant which is used to guarantee the
fitness function to be positive. and w=106 is used in this paper.

3 A FASTMETIIOD TO IDENTIFY FAULTY SUBNElWORKS

When faults occur in a power system. the protective relays corresponding to the faulty
sections should actuate to take the faulty sections out of operation. In other words. the
806 F. WEN AND Z. HAN

faulty sections should be isolated from the generators in order to prevent the faults from
being extended. Moreover, it is very rare that many sections ( for example, more than
10 ) are suffering from faults simultaneously or almost simultaneously. Thus, one or
more small subnetworks will be formed after the operation of protective relays and
circuit breakers. Because all faulty sections are included in these small subnetworks,
then the fault section estimation problem can be confined to these subnetworks. In this
way, the size of the problem can be greatly reduced, and very fast fault diagnosis can be
implemented.

Using the real-time information of circuit breakers and adopting the real-time network
topology determination method [Prais, 1988], we have developed an efficient method to
identify the faulty subnetworks. The framework of the developed method is as follows:

a. Identify the network topology of a power system at the normal operation state by
using the real-time network topology determination method [Prais, 1988].

b. Identify the network topology of the healthy part of the postfaulted power system
after the operation of protective relays and circuit breakers by also using the real-time
network topology determination method[Prais. 1988].

c. Compare the two network topologies identified in step a and step b, and the
differences between them are the faulty subnetworks.

We have tested the method presented above using an actual power system which
consists of 43 substations, 523 sections, 412 circuit breakers. 23 three-winding
transformers and 77 transmission lines and two-winding transformers. The power
system has 107 buses under normal operating conditions. Many complicated fault
scenarios have been tested, and the simulation results show that only 1 to 2 seconds are
required to identify all faulty subnetworks for each fault scenario on a 486
microcomputer. Thus. the developed method to identify the faulty subnetworks as stated
above can be applied to large scale power systems for on-line use.

4 GENETIC ALGORITHMS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS TO THE FAULT

SECTION ESTIMATION

Genetic algorithms (GAs)[Goldberg, 1989; Davis, 1991] are search procedures whose
mechanics are based on those of natural genetics. Up to now, many different genetic
algorithms have been proposed. In this paper. a Simple Genetic Algorithm (SGA)[Ding
and El-Keib, 1992] and several schemes of Refined Genetic Algorithms (RGA)[Davis.
1991; Sheble and Brittig, 199.5] are used to solve the maximization problem of
Equation (4).

4.1 A Simple Genetic Algorithm (SGA)

A typical simple genetic algorithm is shown in Figure 2, and some points associated
with the genetic algorithm are described as fellows:

a. There are many methods to select two parents from the old population, and different
GA methods can be obtained by using different selection methods. In this paper.
tournament selection is employed. The tournament selection proceeds as follows:

(1) The population is repeatedly divided into random tournaments. consisting, in this
study. of two population members per tournament
FAULT ESTIMATION IN POWER SYSTEMS 807

(2) The most fit population member in each tournament receives a copy in the mating
pool.
(3) The process is repeated until the mating pool has the same size as the population.

Initialize the parameters of the genetic algorithm;

Randomly generate the Old_population;
For generation k: = 1 to maxgeneration
Compute the fitness of each individual in the old-POpulation;
Copy the highest fitness of individual to the sotunon.vector;
Use tournament selection method to form madngpool:
While the numbecoCindividual< population_size do
select two parents from the matingpool randomly;
perform the crossover of the parents to produce two offsprings;
mutate each offspring based on mutation_probability;
place the offsprings to new-population;
endwhile
Replace the old_population by the new_population;
endfor
print out the solution_vector as the final solution.

FIGURE 2. The outline of a simple genetic algorithm (in pseudo PASCAL form )

b. When GA is used to solve an optimization problem, it is necessary to represent the

solution in a string form which is called as an encoding process. Generally, the binary
encoding method is used. The standard genetic operators, crossover and mutation, are
operating on the strings to search for optimal solutions. The solutions to the fault
section estimation can be encoded as binary strings directly. The elements in the binary
string represent the states, Sj'S, of all sections in the faulty subnetworks, and they takes
the value of 0 (if the appropriate section is assumed to be a healthy section) or 1 (if the
appropriate section is assumed to a faulty section).

c. Crossover is the most important operator in GA, and it is applied with probability
which is typically between 0.6 and 0.9. The crossover operator takes two strings from
the old population and exchange some contiguous segment of their structures to form
two offsprings. There are several different crossover operators, but in SGA, only single-
point crossover [Davis, 1991] is used.

d. Mutation is also a important operator of GA. In a binary encoded GA, the mutation
operator randomly switches one or more bits with some small probability which is
typically between 0.001 and 0.Ql.

4.2 Refined Genetic Algorithms (RGA)

Most of the refmed genetic algorithm subroutines mimic the subroutines in the SGA
program. However, the crossover operator differs between programs. In addition, the
probabilities of crossover and mutation occurrence can be changed in RGA for eacb
generation, while these probabililies remain constants in SGA for each generation.

The first difference between RGA and SGA occurs in the crossover technique. Two
different crossover operators are used in RGA, which are the two-point crossover
operatorllzavis, 1991] and the uniform crossover operator[Davis, 1991; Sheble and
Britlig, 1995].
808 F. WEN AND Z. HAN

The other difference between RGA and SGA is the changing probabilities of crossover
and mutation occurrence. In SGA, the probabilities of crossover and mutation, i.e., P,
and Pm, is entered at the beginning of the program, and these probabilities remains the
same throughout the entire run of the program. On the other hand, RGA changes these
two probabilities for each generation. Initially, a probability for each is entered. For
every generation thereafter, the probability of crossover is linearly decreased while the
probability of mutation is linearly increased. From the computational mechanism of
GAs, the probability of crossover should be decreased and the probability of mutation
should be increased in order to increase the computational efficiency and the
opportunities to find optimal solutions[Davis, 1991]. Limits on these probabilities
must be set so that they do not exceed the permitted intervals. In this paper, the
permitted interval for P, is between 0.6 and 0.9, and for Pm, it is between 0.001 and
0.1. In SGA, Pc and Pm are set to be 0.9 and 0.001, respectively. In RGA, P, and Pm are
changed from generation to generation according to the following equations:

p~t) =p~t-I) _ [p?) _ 0.6] I MG (5)

pO)
m
= p(H)
m
-[0 • 1- p(O)]
m
I MG (6)

where, t denotes the number of the generation (i.e., the iteration number), and p~O)
and P:::) denote the initial values of the crossover probability and the mutation
probability, respectively, and p~t) and p~) denote the crossover probability and the
mutation probability at the t-th generation, respectively. In this work, p~O) and P:::>are
set to be 0.9 and 0.001, respectively.

Different schemes of RGA can be implemented by using the different combinations of

the two-point crossover operator, the uniform crossover operator, and the changed
probabilities of crossover and mutation occurrence. We have implemented the
following five schemes of RGA:

RGAO --- the same as SGA except that the probabilities of crossover and mutation are
changed according to Equations (5) and (6).

RGA1-1 --- the same as SGA except that the two-point crossover operator is used to
replace the single-point crossover operator in SGA.

RGAI-2 --- the same as RGA1-l except that the probabilities of crossover and
mutation are changed according to Equations (5) and (6).

RGA2-1 r: the same as SGA except that the uniform crossover operator is used to
replace the single-point crossover operator in SGA.

RGA2-2 .-- the same as RGA2·1 except that the probabilities of crossover and mutation
are changed according to Equations (5) and (6).

4.3 A Method to Find Multiple Optimal Solutions by SGA and RGA

The SGA and several schemes of RGA as stated above are powerful in finding the
global or near global optimal solution of an optimization problem. But it is shown from
the simulation results that the SGA or any scheme of RGA can usually find only one
global or near global optimal solution. For the fault section estimation problem,
FAULT ESTIMATION IN POWER SYSTEMS 809

multiple solutions may exist especially for complex fault cases. In order to find all
reasonable solutions, the SGA and RGA must be modified. The modification to SGA
and several schemes of RGA is the same, and is described below. At the first
generation, we pick a copy for each of the best solutions from the population and store
them in a special array. In each of the follow-up generations, we check if the best
solutions in the current population are better than the solutions stored in the array. If
yes, we use the best solutions in the current generation to replace the record of the
array. If the best solutions in the current population are as good as the solutions stored
in the array and they are not the same solutions, then we put the best solutions in the
current generation into the array, thus the array is expanded. Otherwise, we do not
change the record of the array. Please note that the array only contains those solutions
which are found to be best up to the current population, and only a copy can be stored
in the array for each of the best solutions. Thus, at the end of the GA operation, the
array will contain all the different best solutions found during ibe operation. If the
parameters of GAs are properly specified, multiple global optimal solutions can be
found by this method. This has been verified by the numerical examples in section 5.

4.4 A Framework for Solving the Fault Section Estimation Problem Using SGA and
RGA

a. Randomly generate an initial population

b. For generation = 1 to MG (MG is the maximum generations allowed)
b.l calculate the fitness of each individual string using Equation (4)
b.2 produce a mating pool of population size (pops) probabilistically using the
tournament selection method
b.3 for i=1 to popsl2
b.3.1 pair two parents randomly without replacement
b.3.2 crossover the parents randomly with the probability of crossover rate, Pc, to
produce two new strings (offsprings)
b.3.3 mutate each offspring with the probability of mutation rate, Pm

5 NUMERICALEXAMPLES

We have used three model power systems to test the developed mathematical model and
the SGA-based and RGA-based methods to the fault section estimation problem. The
first model power system is shown in Fig.l. A total of 15 cases are tested. Among them
5 cases belong to a single section fault and the corresponding main protective relay(s)
correctly actuated to successfully trip the related circuit breakers. The other 10 cases
include the malfunctions of the protective relays and/or circuit breakers for single
section fault cases and multiple section fault cases. The second model power system is
taken from [Wen and Han, 1993], and it consists of 10 sections, 26 protective relays
and 11 circuit breakers. The single-line diagram of the power system and the actuating
logics of its protective relays are omitted here due to limited space. Please refer to
[Wen and Han, 1993]. A total of 21 cases are tested. Among them are 10 cases
belonging to a single section fault. The corresponding main protective relay(s)
correctly actuated to successfully trip the related circuit breakers. The other 11 cases
include the malfunctions of the protective relays and/or circuit breakers for single
section fault cases and multiple section fault cases. The detailed description of the test
results of these two examples are also omitted here to save space. It is shown from the
simulation results that the developed mathematical model is correct, and the SGA-
based and RGA-based methods can directly and efficiently find all the multiple optimal
solutions in a single run.
810 F. W E N AND Z. HAN

The third model power system is shown in Figure 3, and it consists of 28 sections, 84
protective relays and 40 circuit breakers. The actuating logics of all protective relays
are described in the Appendix. A total of 35 cases are tested. Among them, 28 cases
belong to a single section fault i ~ the
d corresponding main protective relay(s) comctly
actuated to successfully trip the related circuit breakers. Correct results are obtained by
using the developed mathematileal model and SGA-based and RGA-based methods for
the 28 cases, but the detailed results are omitted here due to limited space. The test
results for the other 7 complicated cases are shown in Table 4, and these consist of the
cases of malfunctions of protective relays andlor circuit breakers for single section fault
cases and multiple section fault cases.
TABLE 4. The Results of the Third Test System

In Table 4, multiple solutions appear in 2 cases. The values of the fitness function
f(S) (please see Equation (4)) ftx the multiple solutions corresponding to a group of
alarm signals are equal, and this means that the fault probabilities of the several
solutions are equal. In terms of the actuating logics of the protective relays, it is
concluded that all the results are correct. The simulation results also show that the
proposed SGA-based and RGA-based methods can be applied to the cases with the
malfunction of protective relays and/or circuit breakers, and to multiple section fault
cases. The optimal solutions for all test cases of the three model power systems can be
obtained by SGA or any scheme of RGA, but SGA requires a larger population size
(pops) than RGA. For example, when pops=300 and MG=20, SGA and all schemes of
RGA can obtain the optimal solutions for all test cases. When pops is reduced and MG
is fixed, SGA has less opportu~~ities to find optimal solutions than RGA. The test
results for the 7 complicated cases of the third model power system are shown in Table
5 and Table 6 when the following parameters are used for SGA and RGA, respectively:
FAULT ESTIMATION IN POWER SYSTEMS 81 1

TABLE 5. The Comparison Results of Several GAS when pops=100 and MG=20

function
values of
solutions the optimal
29 optimal nonoptimal optimal
solution solution solution

30 nonoptimal
I solution I
*
optimal
solution
&
1 solution
1000001
31 nonoptimal optimal optimal
I solution I solution 1 solution
1000003
32 two two four
solutions solutions

35 one
solution
1OOOOOO
34 optimal
solution
-+
solution
optimal
solution
two
solution

solution
two
optimal optimal
solution solutions solutions
*: the fitness function value correspc~ndingto the nono tirnal solution
(a) pops=100 and MG=20; (b) pops=SO and MG=200. From Table 5, it is shown that
among the three methods, i.e., SG14, RGA1-1 and RGA2-1, RGA2-1 is the best and
SGA is the worst. From Table 6, it is shown that RGAO and RGA2-2 are both the best
and SGA is the worst. From Table 5 and Table 6, we can come to the following two
conclusions:

a. In terms of the optimality of sol~utionsand the computational efficiency, RGA2-1 is

better than RGA1-1 and SGA, and SGA is the worst of these three methods;
b. When pops is small and MG is big, the RGA methods with the changed probabilities
of crossover and mutation occurrence ( i.e., RGAO, RGA1-2 and RGA2-2 ) are more
powerful in finding optimal solutiorls than SGA and the other schemes of RGA.
The consumed calculating time for each test case of the third model power system is
about 50 seconds on a 486 microcomputer, so the proposed GA-based fault section
estimation methods can be applied on-line.

In addition, it should be stated that the developed mathematical model for the fault
section estimation problem can also be solved by using a conventional integer
programming method. The fault section estimation problem is naturally a 0-1 integer
programming problem. Up to now, some special classes of 0-1 programming problems
have efficient operations research and mathematical programming solution techniques
[Davis, 19911. However, the fault :section estimation problem does not apparently fall
into any of these special classes. Because the fault section estimation problem has a
non-standard operations research fc~nnulationand because it can have multiple optimal
812 F. WEN AND Z. HAN

TABLE 6. The Comparison Results of Several GAs When pops:50 and MG=200

Test No. SGA RGAO RGA1-l RGAI-2 RGA2-1 RGA2-2

29 nonoptim optimal nonoptim optimal nonoptim optimal
aI solution aI solution aI solution
solution solution solution
100000o 1()()()()()4 100000o
30 nonoptim optimal nonoptim optimal nonoptim optimal
aI solution aI solution aI solution
solution solution solution
100000o 1000005 1000002
31 nonoptim optimal nonoptim optimal I nonoptim optimal
aI solution aI solution al solution
solution solution solution
100000o 1000007 1000006
32 one four one three one four
optimal optimal optimal optimal optimal optimal
solution solutions solution solutions solution solution
s
33 nonoptim optimal nonoptim optimal optimal optimal
aI solution aI solution solution solution
solution solution
100000o 100000o
34 nonoptim optimal nonoptim optimal nonoptim optimal
aI solution aI solution aI solution
solution solution solution
100000o 1000001 100000o
35 nonoptim two nonoptim two two two
al optimal al optimal optimal optimal
solution solutions solution solutions solutions solution
100000o 100000o s

solutions and must be fast enough for on-line applications, the conventional integer
programming methods, such as the branch and bound method, are unlikely to be
successful. Genetic algorithms have been demonstrated to solve poorly characterized 0-
1 programming problem efficiently [Davis, 1991] and can find multiple optimal
solutions directly in a single run, so they are selected for this application.

6 CONCLUSIONS

The main contributions of this paper consists of the following three aspects:

a. A mathematical model of fault section estimation problem by using the time

sequence information of circuit breakers only is developed for the first time.

b. An efficient method to identify the faulty subnetworks is presented, and, in this way,
the fault section estimation problem can be confined to these subnetworks and very fast
fault diagnosis can be implemented on-line for large scale power systems.

c. A Simple Genetic Algorithm and several schemes of Refmed Genetic Algorithm

have been adopted to solve the fault section estimation problem, and many simulation
results have shown that these methods can find multiple optimal solutions directly and
efficiently in a single run. . .
FAULT ESTIMATION IN POWER SYSTEMS 813

APPENDIX: TIlE TIllRD TEST SYSTEM

The sample power system as shown in Figure 5 consists of 28 sections, 84 protective

relays, and 40 circuit breakers. Of the total 84 protective relays, 36 protective relays
(rI---r36) are main relays, and the other 48 protective relays (r37 ---r84) are backup
proteetive relays.

CB6 CBI3

CBW CB20

u U ts L6

CB30 CB40

FIGURE 3. The sample power system

SI --- S28: AI, A2, A3, A4, TI, TI, rs, T4, T5, T6, TI, T8, BI, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6,
B7,B8,LI,L2,L3,L4,LS,L6,L7,L8

C, -.- C40 : CBI, CB2, CB3, , CB40

r36: AIm, A2m, A3m, A4m, TIm, TIm, T3m, T4m, T5m, T6m, TIm, T8m,
rl ---
BIm, B2m, B3m, B4m, B5m, B6m, B7m,B8m, LlSm, LlRm, L2Sm, L2Rm, L3Sm,
L3Rm, L4Sm, L4Rm, LSSm, L5Rm, L6Sm, L6Rm, L7Sm, L7Rm, L8Sm, L8Rm

r37 --- r84: TIp, TIp, T3p, T4p, T5p, T6p, TIp, TSp, TIs, TIs, T3s, T4s, T5s, T6s, TIs,
T8s, LISp, LIRp, L2Sp, L2Rp,L3Sp, L3Rp, L4Sp,L4Rp, LSSp,LSRp, L6Sp, L6R~
L7Sp, L7Rp, LSSp, LSRp, LlSs, LlRs, L2Ss, L2Rs, L3Ss, L3Rs, USs, L4Rs, LSSs,
LSRs, L6Ss, L6Rs, L7Ss, L7Rs, LSSs, L8Rs
814 F. WEN AND Z. HAN·

Here, both A and B denote busbars; T and L denote a transformer and a transmission
line, respectively; S and R denote the sending end and the receiving end of a
transmission line, respectively; m, p and s denote a main protective relay, a primary
backup protective relay and a secondary backup protective relay, respectively.

The actuating logics of each kind of protective relays are briefly introduced as follows.

a. The operation of the main protective relay of any busbar is set to trip all the circuit
breakers directly connected to the busbar. For example, if a fault occurs on busbar AI,
then AIm should actuate to trip CBI, CB2 and CB3; if a fault occurs on busbar B8,
then, B8m should actuate to trip CB32, CB33 and CB39.

b. The operation of the main protective relays of any transformer is set to trip the two (
or three, if the transformer has three windings) circuit breakers at each terminal. For
example, if a fault occurs on T3, then T3m should actuate to trip CBI4 and CBI6.

The operation of the primary backup protective relay of any transformer is set to trip
the same circuit breakers as the main protective relay only if a fault has occurred within
the transformer and the circuit breakers at each terminal do not trip during the
actuating time zone of its main protective relay. For example, if a fault has occurred on
T3, and CB 14 and/or CB 16 failed to trip during the actuating time zone of T3m, then
T3p should actuate to trip CBI4 and/or CBI6.

The purpose of the secondary backup protective relay of any transformer is to protect
the transformer in case of a fault occurring on one of its neighbouring sections, and the
main protective relay of the faulty section fails to make the corresponding circuit
breakers trip. For example, the actuating logics of TIs are : (1) if a fault occurs on A2,
and CBI6 fails to trip during the actuating time zones of T3m and T3p, then TIs
should actuate to trip CBI6, or (2) if a fault occurs on B3, and CBI4 fails to trip
during the actuating time zones of T3m and T3p, then T3s should actuate to trip CB 14,
or (3) if a fault occurs on B4, and both CB 13 and CB14 fail to trip during the actuating
time zones ofT3m and TIp, then T3s should actuate to trip CB14.
c. Both the sending end and the receiving end of any transmission line have one main
protective relay and two backup protective relays, respectively. For example, the main
protective relays of the sending end and the receiving end of L7 are L7Sm and L7Rm,
respectively, and their actuating logic is: if a fault occurs on L7, then both L7Sm and
L7Rm should actuate to trip CB29 and CB39, respectively.

The actuating logics of the two primary backup protective relays, i.e., L7Sp and
L7Rp, are: (1) if a fault occurs on L7, and CB29 fails to trip during the actuating time
zone ofL7Sm, then L7Sp should actuate to trip CB29; (2) if a fault occurs on L7, and
CB39 fails to trip during the actuating time zone ofL7Rm, then L7Rp should actuate to
trip CB39.

The purpose of the secondary backup protective relay of any transmission line is to
protect the transmission line in case of a fault occurring on one of its neighbouring
sections. For example, the actuating logics of L7Ss are: (I) if a fault occurs on B8, and
CB39 fails to trip during the actuating time zones ofL7Sm and L7Sp, then L7Ss should
actuate to trip CB29, or (2) if a fault occurs on B7, and both CB33 and CB39 fail to trip
during the actuating time zones of L7Sm and L7Sp, then L7Ss should actuate to trip
CB29. The actuating logics of L7Rs are: (1) if a fault occurs on B5, and CB29 fails to
trip during the actuating time zones of L7Rm and L7Rp, then L7Rs should actuate to
FAULT ESTIMATION IN POWER SYSTEMS 815

trip CB39, or (2) if a fault occurs on B6, and both CB26 and CB29 fail to trip during
the actuating time zones of L7Rm and L7Rp, then L7Rs should actuate to trip CB39.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work is supported by the Foundation of State Educational Committee of China for
Ph.D programs. The authors thank the reviewers for their valuable comments of this
paper, which have considerably helped in improving the overall quality of the work.

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