IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 26, NO.
3, JULY 2011
A New Technique to Detect Faults in De-Energized
Distribution Feeders—Part I: Scheme and
Asymmetrical Fault Detection
Xun Long, Student Member, IEEE, Wilsun Xu, Fellow, IEEE, and Yun Wei Li, Member, IEEE
Abstract—Re-energizing an overhead distribution feeder safely
is a major consideration for a utility’s safe work practice. One way
to improve the safety is to determine whether the feeder still expe-
riences short circuits before it is energized. In this paper, a novel
fault detection technique is proposed to detect if a de-energized dis-
tribution system still experiences short-circuit faults. The proposed
method involves injecting a thyristor-generated-controllable signal
into the de-energized feeder. The feeder voltage and current re-
sponses are analyzed to determine if a fault still exists. A thyristor
gating control strategy and fault detection algorithm are also de-
veloped in this paper to detect all possible types of faults that can
occur in a system. The effectiveness of the proposed method has
been verified through theoretical analysis, computer simulations,
and lab tests.
Index Terms—De-energized distribution line, fault classification,
fault detection, power electronics, safe recloser.
I. INTRODUCTION
R E-ENERGIZING or reclosing to a de-energized overhead
distribution feeder safely is a major consideration for a
utility’s safe work practice [1]–[5]. After a feeder is de-ener-
gized for an extended period due to events, such as repair, main-
tenance, or storms, there is always the possibility that humans or
animals may be in contact with feeder conductors unknowingly
[6], [7]. A reclosing action in such a situation can easily lead
to fatalities [8], [9]. Utility companies are therefore very inter-
ested in techniques that can determine whether a de-energized
feeder is clear of short circuits so that operators can re-energize
the feeder with confidence.
Compared to detecting faults in an energized system, to de-
tect faults in a de-energized system is more challenging, since
it requires the generation and application of a voltage signal to
the de-energized feeder. Furthermore, the signal must be high
enough to mimic the normal medium-voltage stress (e.g., 25
kV) to be experienced by the feeder. One way to generate the
signal is through charging or discharging a capacitor in the cir-
cuit. For example, in [10], a cable tester uses a capacitor and
Manuscript received October 03, 2010; revised January 07, 2011; accepted
February 08, 2011. Date of publication April 07, 2011; date of current version
June 24, 2011. This work was supported by iCORE. Paper no. TPWRD-00758-
2010.
The aurthors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2V4, Canada (e-mail:
xlong@ualberta.ca; wxu@ualberta.ca; yunwei.li@ece.ualberta.ca).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2011.2118237
0885-8977/$26.00 © 2011 IEEE
1893
diodes to create a high voltage charging circuit. If there is a
short circuit, the charging circuit will not be able to reach a
very high voltage. In [11], a portable tester utilizes a capacitor
to discharge a high-voltage pulse into the de-energized line and
estimates the voltage and current response. These devices are
portable but they require maintenance of power source such as
batteries. Moreover, the energy of the injected pulse is usually
fixed and limited, which means these devices cannot be adapted
for a system with different voltage ratings or used for a high
impedance fault.
Another way to generate the detection signal is to “borrow”
energy from the upstream power system and, therefore, an extra
power supply is not required. The fault detector in [12] pro-
duces the detection signal by closing the recloser for one cycle.
If the current is too high, indicating the existent of a down-
stream short circuit, a series impedance will be inserted to re-
duce the inrush current. Similar to autoreclosers, this method
still injects significant inrush current into the downstream before
the insertion of the series impedance. In [13], a short-duration
voltage from an electronic switch is applied to test if the down-
stream circuit is shorted. However, the device may not have
enough rating for working in MV system, and the strength of
the pulse is not adjustable (different types of faults require dif-
ferent signal strength (e.g., a strong signal is needed to detect a
high impedance fault). Furthermore, another drawback for the
aforementioned methods is that they cannot identify different
types of faults in a single device.
Recently, a pulse-recloser technique has been developed for
the purpose of reducing the inrush current caused by reclosing
to a faulted feeder [14]. This technique uses specialized recloser
and is intended for fuse-saving-oriented feeder reclosing oper-
ations. In theory, the technique can be applied to the problem
of concern in this paper (i.e., detecting feeder faults after the
feeder has been de-energized for an extended period). However,
its application requires replacing the existing feeder breaker or
recloser. This can be costly to utility companies if implemented
on a large scale.
In view of the limitations of existing techniques, a new detec-
tion technique is proposed in this paper. A thyristor-based de-
vice is used to inject a controllable signal into the de-energized
downstream to stimulate the electrical response. A significant
feature of this technique is that the signal strength is adjustable
by changing the thyristor firing angle. Therefore, a low-voltage
pulse can be created to satisfy the safety requirement, and a
high-voltage pulse can be produced to break down an insulted
1894 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 26, NO. 3, JULY 2011

gap of a high-impedance fault when necessary. The proposed

idea has another important feature, which is the ability to de-
tect different kinds of faults by using a single device (in parallel
with a recloser). A fault could be asymmetrical or symmetrical
and it may occur between phase to ground or phase to phase.
The fault-type detection ability of the proposed technique can
Fig. 1. Single-line representation of the proposed fault detection method.
greatly facilitate the utility to make proper action. The actual
embodiment of the technique is a low voltage power electronic
device connected to MV feeders through common utility pri-
mary-to-secondary service transformers. The device is installed
permanently at the recloser or breaker locations and can be oper-
ated locally or remotely. As a result, there is no need to replace
the existing breaker or recloser.
The rest of the paper is organized as following. The proposed
Fig. 2. Waveforms of: (a) thyristor voltage and current and (b) measured
fault detection scheme is presented in Section II. In this sec- voltage and current at the point X.
tion, the characteristics of the detection signal in different types
of faults are also investigated and the gating and detection al-
gorithm for identifying different faults are developed. To verify
the proposed technique, computer simulation results based on
a 25 kV distribution system are provided in Section III. More-
over, a low-voltage single-phase experimental system prototype
has been constructed, and the experimental results are presented
in Section IV. Finally, an alternative structure of the detection
device with the same functionality but with fewer thyristors is
introduced in Section V. This paper is concluded in Section VI.

II. POWER-ELECTRONICS-AIDED FAULT DETECTION

As mentioned earlier, the challenge for fault detection in a
de-energized system is how to generate and inject an appro-
priate detection signal. The signal is preferably to be adjustable
in a large range of magnitude. For example, at the beginning,
a low-strength signal is desired, which can be considered as an
alarm so that human or animals contacting with the conductors
can sense it and get away to avoid injury. Then, the detection
signal strength should increase gradually to stimulate detectable
electrical response. It should be able to reach a very high-voltage
to break down the insulated gap if there is a high-impedance
fault.
The proposed technique is able to generate this kind of
signal by adjusting the thyristor’s firing angle. The single line
representation of the proposed method is shown in Fig. 1. A
thyristor is connected in parallel to a circuit breaker or recloser
by a switch. The switch is off in the normal system operation.
When maintenance or repair at downstream is completed and
the de-energized feeder needs to be restored, the line operator
can turn on the switch and control the thyristor to trigger at
several degrees before the voltage crosses zero. The energized
upstream line is thus momentarily connected to the de-ener-
gized side so that a detection pulse is created in the downstream.
The thyristor automatically shut off when its current drops to
zero [15], [16]. A step-down transformer is used to decrease
the voltage of the distribution line to a low level for thyristor
operation and then a step-up transformer is used to restore the
signal back to the system voltage level. Point X in Fig. 1 is
the location for measuring the stimulated voltage and current
signals. The typical thyristor voltage, current and the measured
waveforms at point X are shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 3. Three-phase thyristor bridge-based fault detection scheme.
In a three-phase four-line system, a fault could be symmet-
rical or asymmetrical and it may occur between phases or be-
tween phase and ground. Therefore, the detection and classifi-
cation of all kinds of faults is highly desired. To do this, a three-
phase thyristor bridge-based scheme is proposed. As shown in
Fig. 3, a three-phase thyristor bridge circuit is connected in par-
allel to the circuit breaker. The upper thyristors are connected
to one phase of the energized upstream and the bottom thyris-
tors are connected to the neutral line. As mentioned earlier, to
minimize the size and reduce the cost of power-electronics de-
vices, transformers are used to let the thyristors operate at a
lower voltage level. Even considering the added cost on trans-
formers, the overall cost of this configuration will be lower.
Once the detection signals are injected, voltage and current
at point X are measured and analyzed in the signal detector to
determine if there is a fault. The detection for different kinds
of faults depends on the gating signals arrangement for the
thyristor bridge. Basically, there are two control modes for
phase-to-ground faults and phase-to-phase faults detection,
respectively, as shown in Fig. 4.
In the first mode, when an upper thyristor (T1) is turned on
and all bottom thyristors are off, a detection pulse is injected
to the corresponding phase of the de-energized line through the
LONG et al.: NEW TECHNIQUE TO DETECT FAULTS IN DE-ENERGIZED DISTRIBUTION FEEDERS—PART I 1895

Fig. 5. Single-line equivalent system circuit with zero-sequence current injec-

tion.

Fig. 4. Gating control logic in two fault detection modes.: (a) Phase-to-ground
fault. (b) Phase-to-phase fault.

TABLE I
OVERALL CONTROL LOGIC AND DETECTED FAULT TYPES

Fig. 6. Current waveforms under (a) no fault with balanced three-phase cur-
rents and (b) a single-line-to-ground fault with unbalanced three-phase currents.

load, distribution line, system, and the step-down transformer,

upper thyristor, creating a fault current if there is a phase-to- respectively. Since the system and transformers impedance is
ground fault in that phase. In the other mode, T1 and T4 are fired much lower than the load impedance, (1) can be simplified as
simultaneously. If a fault between phase A and phase B exists,
(2)
it provides a path for the fault current to flow from T1 and T4
to the neutral. With the aforementioned two modes for different Assuming the downstream impedance ,
types of fault detection, the overall fault detection logic is listed and the relationship of
in Table I, which include three steps that can detect all types of
faults. In the following two subsections, phase-to-ground faults (3)
and phase-to-phase faults are analyzed, respectively.
the injected current can be obtained as
A. Phase-to-Ground Faults Detection
Statistics have shown that a single phase-to-ground fault is the
most common fault in a distribution system, which accounts for
70%–80% of distribution line faults. On the contrary, a three-
phase-to-ground fault with balanced three-phase currents only (4)
account for 5% of faults [17]. For this reason, the analysis in
this section focuses on a single phase-to-ground fault and other
Thus, the magnitude of the injected current can be further
unbalanced phase-to-ground faults.
expressed as in (5), which suggests that the lower downstream
In Step I of the fault detection algorithm, when T1, T3, and T5
impedance give higher values of current magnitude
(upper switches in a thyristor bridge) are turned on simultane-
ously and T2, T4, and T6 (lower switches in a thyristor bridge)
are off, a pulse is injected into all three phases at the de-en- (5)
ergized side. This signal, which is from the same phase of the
energized side, can be considered as a zero-sequence voltage ap- where .
plied to the downstream. The equivalent circuit of this situation If there is no asymmetrical fault, the three-phase parameters
is illustrated as Fig. 5. should be balanced, and the impedance of each phase is de-
If the firing angle of the thyristors T1, T3, and T5 is , the termined by (6). Thus, the injected three-phase current pulses
injected voltage distortion at point X can be expressed as should be in phase and have the same magnitude as shown in
Fig. 6(a)

(6)
(1)

where is the rated phase-to-neutral voltage of the distribution However, if a single phase-to-ground fault exists, the fault
line, and are the zero impedance of resistance will be parallel to the circuit as shown in Fig. 7. In this
1896 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 26, NO. 3, JULY 2011

Fig. 7. Equivalent impedance under a single-phase-to-ground fault.

Fig. 8. Voltage and current pulses generated with different thyristor firing an-
case, the equivalent impedance in the faulted phase is smaller gles. (a) Voltage pulses. (b) Current pulses.
than the healthy phases as

(7)

where is the fault resistance and the line reactance

.
As a result, the current pulse in the faulted phase is higher
according to (5). The sample current waveforms of three phases
with a phase A-to-ground fault are illustrated in Fig. 6(b).
The severity of the current imbalance is highly related to
the resistance of the fault. From the statistical data, about
85% 98% of the faults are low impedance fault [18]. Due to
the increase of fault resistance, the imbalance of three phases
becomes less severe. Thus, for high-impedance fault detection,
the firing angle should be small enough to create a high voltage
on the de-energized side to cause a sufficient fault current that
differs from an unfaulted line.
The criterion for detecting an unbalanced phase-to-ground
fault is designed as follows.
1) Measure all three phase currents in Step I.
2) Calculate the magnitude of the injected current in each
phase . Are they identical? If yes, there is no
asymmetrical fault. If no, an asymmetrical fault exists.
i) Among the three current magnitudes, if one of them
is larger and the others are the same (e.g.,
), it indicates a single-phase-to-ground fault and the
faulted phase is identified.
ii) If two of them are the same and larger than the third
one (e.g., ), it indicates a double-phase
to ground fault and then the two faulted phases are
detected.
The method using the unbalanced currents is not applicable
for three-phase symmetrical faults detection. Thus, another idea
using harmonic impedance is proposed for this purpose, and the
detail of three-phase symmetrical fault detection will be dis-
cussed in a companion paper.
Note that the firing angle of the thyristors determines the
pulse energy. Reducing the firing angle can increase the pulses
magnitude and extend the conduction period (see Fig. 8). There-
fore, an initial alarming pulse with a small voltage is gener-
ated by controlling the firing angle close to 180 . This alarming
signal can avoid potential hazards to the humans or other ob-
jects in contact with the power lines. After that, the firing angle
decreases gradually to achieve high voltage for high-impedance
Fig. 9. Signal injection for phase-to-phase fault detection.
fault detection. If the device is fully turned on, the maximum
amount of energy is essentially applied.
B. Phase-to-Phase Faults Detection.
Unlike the previous scheme for phase-to-ground fault detec-
tion, the detection signal for phase-to-phase fault is created by
simultaneously turning on one upper thyristor and one or two
bottom thyristors from different phase legs. In this case, one
phase connects to the energized side and the others connected to
the neutral line. If a phase-to-phase fault exists, a current pulse
will show up on both phases in reverse directions. Otherwise,
there is no path for current flowing in the de-energized phases.
For example, as shown in Fig. 9(a), T1, T4, and T6 are turned
on and others are off. If there is no fault between phase A and
phase B, the current in phase A is determined by (4) and no
current flow in phase B and phase C. If a fault exists between
phase A and phase B, the current will show up on both phases
in reverse direction. The equivalent impedance of phase A is
(8)
where is the fault resistance, are the line in-
ductance of phase A and B, respectively.
Since the load impedance is much larger than the line
impedance, most current from phase A flows back to neutral
through the distribution line instead of the load. The current of
phase B can therefore be determined as:
(9)
LONG et al.: NEW TECHNIQUE TO DETECT FAULTS IN DE-ENERGIZED DISTRIBUTION FEEDERS—PART I 1897

Fig. 10. Voltage and current pulses when a phase A-to-phase B fault exists. (a)
Voltage pulses. (b) Current pulses.

The voltage and current waveforms of phase A and phase B

with a phase A-to-phase B (low impedance) fault are shown in
Fig. 10.
Based on the analysis of signal characteristics in a phase-to-
phase fault, the present reverse signal could be used as an indi-
cator. The criterion is therefore designed as follows:
Fig. 11. Details of the three-step fault detection algorithm.
1) In Step II, the magnitude of phase B and phase C currents
are measured.
If , a fault exists between phase A and phase
B;
If , a fault exists between phase A and phase
C;
Otherwise, there is no fault between phase A and any
other phases.
Fig. 12. Configuration of the computer simulation system.
2) In Step III, the magnitude of phase C current is measured.
If , a fault exists between phase B and phase
C;
separate step-up transformers are used instead of a three-phase
Otherwise, there is no fault between phase B and phase
transformer to reduce the interference between phases. Other
C.
parameters are listed in the following:
3) All possibilities of phase-to-phase faults can be checked
•. Utility: L-L RMS 25 kV, Yg connected.
after Steps II and III.
•. Transformers: step-down transformer, single phase, 14.43
Finally, combining both the phase-to-ground faults and
kV/0.48 kV, 5 MVA; step-up transformer, single phase,
phase-to-phase faults detection schemes, the overall fault de-
0.48 kV/14.43 kV, 5 MVA.
tection algorithm is summarized in Fig. 11. Different kinds
•. Signal generator: three-phase thyristor bridge. Firing angle
of asymmetrical faults can be identified after conducting the
is 150 .
three steps. If a large or small injection current is needed, the
•. Feeders: both Line 1 and Line 2 are 5 km, the
firing angle can be adjusted accordingly. Note that the neutral
positive sequence
ground connection is important for the proposed scheme. A
; the zero se-
loose ground connection will not affect the line-to-ground fault
quence
detection, but it will affect the line-to-line fault detection since
.
there is no current return path in this case. To check the ground
•. Load: 4 MVA, lagging, , Fed with a 5 MVA,
connection, a simple procedure can be performed by firing T1
25 kV/0.6 kV, Yg/Yg transformer %
and T4 simultaneously at a very small angle before the voltage
•. Faults: resistance – , the default .
zero crossing. The present of a current pulse indicates good
According to the gate signals control logic (see Table I), three
ground connection.
detection steps are carried out to detect different kinds of faults.
These thyristors fire once in every four fundamental cycles. It is
III. COMPUTER SIMULATION RESULTS noted that shorter intervals for faster detection are also possible
Computer simulations using PSCAD are performed to as the signal attenuates to zero within one fundamental cycle.
verify the above analysis. The rated voltage of the distribution The interference between different steps is negligible as shown
line is 25 kV. As shown in Fig. 12, a three-phase thyristor in the results. Considering the three steps as one operation pe-
bridge-based signal generator is connected to the upstream riod, the firing angle reduces from 170 after each period until
feeder (phase A in this case) and neutral through a single the potential faults are identified. Most faults (expect for some
phase transformer. The three bridge legs are connected to the high impedance faults) can be detected within 1 s.
de-energized downstream through step-up transformers. As the When there is no fault, the measured currents are shown in
current pulses through the transformers are not balanced, three Fig. 13. In Step I, as a zero-sequence voltage is applied to three
1898 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 26, NO. 3, JULY 2011

Fig. 13. Three-phase currents in three steps without fault.

Fig. 15. Current waveforms of phase C with different fault resistances.

Fig. 14. Three-phase currents in three steps under a phase C-to-ground fault.
Fig. 16. Current difference between phases under the phase C-to-ground fault.

phases, the currents are identical. In Step II, a signal is injected

from phase A, and both phase B, C are connected to neutral.
Since there is no fault between A-B or A-C, the signal has no
path to flow into phase B and C so that the currents of phase
B and C are zero; Step III is similar to Step II, with the only
difference being that the signal is injected from phase B rather
than from phase A.

A. Phase-to-Ground Fault
If a single-phase-to-ground fault exists in phase C and
ground, the current in Step I will change. As shown in Fig. 14,
the current of phase C increases significantly due to the fault.
As discussed earlier, under the same firing angle, the magni-
tude of the current depends on the fault resistance in the existing
system. When the firing angle is 150 , the current waveforms
with different fault resistance are shown in Fig. 15. It is apparent
that the magnitude of the fault current decrease with the increase
of fault resistance. Therefore, if is small, the thyristor firing
angle should be large enough to decrease the current to a safe
value. On the other hand, If is large, the current of faulted
phase is comparable to the currents of unfaulted phase, which
increase the difficulty of detection. Thus, the firing angle should
be reduced to obtain an obvious difference between faulted and
healthy phases.
According to the criterion of identifying an unbalanced
phase-to-ground fault, the current difference between two
phases is calculated. The single phase C-to-ground fault does
not affect phase A and phase B; thus, the currents of phase
A and B are identical when a zero-sequence voltage pulse is
applied to the downstream in Step I. As shown in Fig. 16,
is almost zero regardless of firing angles and fault
resistance. Since the current of phase C is larger, and
Fig. 17. Three-phase currents in three steps under a phase A-to-phase B fault.
have almost the same values. As discussed, reducing
the firing angle can make the difference of current between
phases more significant.
B. Phase-to-Phase Fault
If there is a phase-to-phase fault between phase A and B,
the three-phase current waveforms in three steps are shown in
Fig. 17. In Step I, all three-phase currents are identical, but in
Step II, a reverse signal shows up in phase B when a pulse is in-
jected from phase A. It indicates a fault existing between phase
A and phase B. The waveforms in Step III verify the existent of
a fault since a reverse signal shows up in phase A when a pulse
is injected from phase B.
The current of phase B in Step II not only depends on the in-
jected current from phase A, but it is also affected by other three
parameters of power system as shown in (9): the fault location
(the length from the fault detection point, which determines the
line impedance of interest), the load, and fault impedance.
LONG et al.: NEW TECHNIQUE TO DETECT FAULTS IN DE-ENERGIZED DISTRIBUTION FEEDERS—PART I
Fig. 18. Sensitivity study of a phase-to-phase fault. (The bases are: Line 1
length 5 km, Load 4 MVA, Rf = 200
).
Fig. 19. Three-phase currents in three steps under multiple faults.
Fig. 18 shows the ratio of with the different values of
the three parameters in Step II. Apparently, the fault resistance
has a significant impact on the current division. If the phase-to-
phase fault has high impedance, the current of phase B through
the fault will be largely reduced. Another significant impact is
from the load. A large load will lead more current flow through
the load on phase B rather than from the grounded conductor
of phase B where the measurement point X is located as shown
in Fig. 9(b). The impact of the Line1 length is very limited as
shown in Fig. 18, which confirms the analysis in (9).
Moreover, the situation of multiple faults is also tested, which
includes: 1) a phase C-to-ground fault; 2) a phase A-to-phase
B fault; and 3) a phase A-to-phase C fault. The test results are
shown in Fig. 19. In Step I, phase C current is much larger than
that of phase A and phase B, which indicates a phase C-to-
ground fault. In Step II, a pulse is injected from phase A and
reverses pulses show up on both phases B and C, meaning that
the A-B fault and A-C fault exist. Step III verifies that a fault be-
tween A-B exists. If necessary, a pulse can also be injected from
phase C to verify if a fault between A-C or B-C exists. There-
fore, all three different faults can be successfully identified with
the proposed scheme.
IV. EXPERIMENT VERIFICATIONS
An experiment based on a 120-V single phase system has
been carried out in the laboratory, and the prototype consists
of: 1) a thyristor-based signal generator; 2) a NI-DAQ-based
data-acquisition system; and 3) a lumped model-based equiva-
lent circuit. The firing angle of the thyristor can be adjusted from
170 to 150 and the firing interval can be either 2 or 4 funda-
mental cycles. In the DAQ device, six channels—including three
1899
Fig. 20. Equivalent circuit of the experimental testing system.
Fig. 21. Measured voltage waveforms in the lab experiment.
voltage measurement channels and three current measurement
channels—have been utilized (note that regular current/voltage
probes or transducers are sufficient for the proposed device).
Due to the limitation of lab equipment, all of the transmission
lines and transformers have been replaced by equivalent induc-
tors in the single-phase system. The loads have been replaced
by an equivalent R-L model as well. All parameters have been
scaled down based on the computer simulation model:
•. power source: 120 V;
•. transformers: 0.03 p.u.,
0.76 mH;
•. signal generator: a thyristor. Firing angle is adjustable from
170 to 150 ;
•. feeders: 0.4 mH;
•. load: 10 mH;
•. faults: resistance .
The equivalent circuit of the lab test prototype is shown in
Fig. 20. The fault resistance and the load size are
adjustable.
Fig. 21 shows that the typical voltage waveforms in the test.
represent the 120 V, 60 Hz single-phase voltage source and
is the voltage across the thyristor. When the thyristor is
fired at a certain degree before the source voltage crosses zero,
becomes zero instantaneously. At this moment, the
de-energized part of the circuit is connected to voltage source.
is the voltage pulse created by the thyristor. When the thyristor
current becomes zero, the thyristor turns off naturally and the
passive circuit returns to its de-energized state.
The corresponding currents, including the load current ,
the fault current , and the total current , are shown in
Fig. 22. The currents are highly related to the characteristics
1900
Fig. 22. Measured current waveforms in the lab experiment.
Fig. 23. Measured current waveforms with different firing angles.
Fig. 24. Measured current waveforms with different fault resistances.
of the passive circuit, such as the load impedance, the length
of the line, and the fault impedance. It can be seen that with
a small impedance fault, the fault current is close to the
total current and the load current is relatively small as
the load impedance is much higher than the fault impedance.
As shown in Fig. 23, the current pulse magnitude is highly
correlated with the firing angle. The current increases as the
firing angle decreases. For safety considerations, the firing angle
is initiated at close to 180 , and then decreases gradually until
all potential faults can be detected.
The impact of fault resistance is illustrated in Fig. 24. The
current decreases with the increase of fault resistance. A bolted
fault can result in a large current, which is easily detected by
a signal with low strength. The high-impedance fault is more
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 26, NO. 3, JULY 2011
Fig. 25. Alternative cascaded structure.
TABLE II
CONTROL LOGIC OF THE CASCADED STRUCTURE
difficult to detect. However, in the proposed methods, asym-
metrical high-impedance faults can be identified by unbalanced
fault currents.
V. ALTERNATIVE CASCADED STRUCTURE
An alternative signal generation device structure is also pro-
posed in this paper as shown in Fig. 25, which has four thyris-
tors cascaded together. Similarly, the device is connected to an
energized upstream phase line and the neutral through a trans-
former. In the de-energized side, the phase conductors are con-
nected to the joints between two thyristors. The cascaded struc-
ture only uses four thyristors rather than six thyristors in the
previous structure.
To detect different types of faults in this single device, the
control logic of gating signals is designed as in Table. II. Sim-
ilar to the bridge-based topology, the process for fault detection
includes three steps. In Step I, a zero-sequence signal is implied
to all three phases for phase-ground fault detection; In Step II,
a signal is injected from phase A and returns to the neutral from
phase B or C if there is any fault between phase A and other
phases; There is a little difference from the bridge-based scheme
in Step III of the four-thyristor device, where a signal is injected
LONG et al.: NEW TECHNIQUE TO DETECT FAULTS IN DE-ENERGIZED DISTRIBUTION FEEDERS—PART I
not only from phase B but also phase A since the first thyristor
must be turned on in order to connect phase B to the energized
side. So faults between A-C or B-C will be detected in Step III.
Despite the different control logic of gating signals of the
cascaded thyristor topology, the criteria for fault detection are
the same as those in the bridge-based topology, as the signal
responses under different types of faults are still the same.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a thyristor-based fault detection scheme is
proposed to detect the existence of a fault in the de-energized
downstream system, which can ensure a smooth and safe
reclosing without causing a hazard to the downstream devices
and personnel. The proposed technique functions by generating
a controllable detection signal through the thyristor- based
device connected in parallel with a recloser, and using the
stimulated voltage and current signals to detect whether a fault
still exists in the downstream. The device can be run manually
or automatically whenever reclosing is needed. For auto opera-
tion, communication is not an issue since the recloser is linked
with communication means if it can be reclosed remotely. To
identify different types of faults, the characteristics of injected
signals under phase-to-ground faults and phase-to-phase faults
are studied and the criteria for identifying a faulted line from
healthy lines are developed accordingly. The three-step fault de-
tection algorithm is then developed, where all phase-to-ground
faults (including asymmetrical and symmetrical faults) will be
detected in Step I, and the phase-to-phase faults are detected
in Steps II and III. The whole three-step testing procedure will
take between one to a few seconds, which is sufficiently fast
for the fault detection in a de-energized system. Both computer
simulation and lab experiment results are obtained to verify the
effectiveness of the proposed technique. An alternative struc-
ture with fewer thyristors is also proposed to reduce the size and
cost of the power-electronics device. The proposed technique
is used for reclosing after the feeder has been de-energized for
an extended period; however, it also can be improved for the
fuse-saving oriented reclosing operations.
This paper mainly focuses on the introduction of the proposed
power–electronics-aided fault detection technique, such as the
faulty line electrical signal characteristics, gating signal genera-
tion algorithm, and fault detection steps. More practical imple-
mentation issues, including the detection of three-phase sym-
metrical faults and distinguishing a fault from stalled motors or
downstream shunt capacitors, are presented separately in a com-
panion paper.
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Xun Long (S’08) received the B.E. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering
from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2004 and 2007, respectively, and
is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering
from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
His main research interests include power-line signaling, distributed genera-
tion, and fault detection.
Wilsun Xu (F’05) received the Ph.D. degree from the University of British Co-
lumbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, in 1989.
From 1989 to 1996, he was an Electrical Engineer with BC Hydro, Vancouver,
and Surrey, BC, respectively.
Currently, he is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Alberta, where he has been since 1996. His research interests are
power quality and distributed generation.
Yun Wei Li (S’04–M’05) received the B.Sc. degree in engineering from Tianjin
University, Tianjin, China, in 2002, and the Ph.D. degree from Nanyang Tech-
nological University, Singapore, in 2006.
In 2005, he was a Visiting Scholar with the Institute of Energy Technology,
Aalborg University, Denmark. From 2006 to 2007, he was a Postdoctoral Re-
search Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ry-
erson University, Toronto, ON, Canada. After working with Rockwell Automa-
tion Canada in 2007, he joined the Department of Electrical and Computer En-
gineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada, as an Assistant Pro-
fessor. His research interests include distributed generation, microgrid, power
converters, and electric motor drives.