Electrical Power and Energy Systems 114 (2020) 105387

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Electrical Power and Energy Systems

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijepes

High impedance fault location: Generalized extension for ground faults T

a a,⁎ b a
J. Doria-Garcia , C. Orozco-Henao , L.U. Iurinic , Juan Diego Pulgarín-Rivera
a
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia
b
Department of Engineering and Computer Science, Universidade Regional Integrada do Alto Uruguai e das Missões, Frederico Westphalen, Brazil

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: This paper presents an impedance-based method to estimate the fault location in transmission lines. The
High-impedance faults mathematical formulation uses a generalized equation for the estimation of the fault distance, which does not
Electrical power systems depend on the fault type, and its solution is obtained by the application of a least squares method. The method
Fault location considers available voltage and current measurements at both terminals of the transmission line as well as the
line parameters. Additionally, the proposed method shows an adequate performance for the fault detection.
Moreover, you can use it for locating high and low impedance faults. The paper presents extensive numerical
experiments demonstrating that the method has high accuracy; specifically, the error in fault location accuracy is
under 10% for more than 80% of the test cases. The easiness of method implementation and encouraging test
results indicate potential for real-life applications.

1. Introduction
Electrical Power Systems (EPS) are exposed to environmental and
operating conditions that increase their vulnerability to the occurrence
of faults. Faults are impossible to avoid due to the hostile environment
in which EPS are located and to their stochastic nature. Therefore, Fault
Location (FL) methods, are highly important to reduce the restoration
time of the power supply [1]. This considers the premise that “a quick
and accurate location of the fault allows maintenance teams to proceed
to the restoration of energy service in less time, mitigating the effect of
the interruption on the comfort of users and penalties to the network
operators”.
The FL process involves the fault detection and the estimation of the
exact point where it occurs. The fault detection process has been widely
faced in the state of the art [2], and the FL process has been highly
studied for Low Impedance Faults (LIF) that behave as linear re-
sistances, obtaining great results like those presented in [3–8]. High
Impedance Faults (HIF) term is normally applied to faults in distribu-
tion networks (15–25 kV) [2]. However, it has also been studied in
transmission networks [9–18].
High impedance faults (HIF) are easily confused with different
disturbances in EPS, such as overloads, connection and disconnection of
capacitor banks, among others [19]. The characteristics of HIF have
been studied by some authors in [20–22]. In works such as those pro-
posed in [12,13,17,19,21,23–27], the asymmetry and non-linearity of
the HIFs are analyzed to determine suitable models that allow their
study. The HIFL process has been studied from three approaches: tra-
veling waves, circuit analysis in time domain, and frequency domain.
Next, we describe each of them.
The principle of travelling waves was used in [10] and [15], to-
gether with the wavelet transform. In [9], taking advantage of the non-
linearity of the HIF, a high-frequency signal is injected into a terminal
of the line, which is received by equipment installed in each tower. By
analyzing the signals sent and received, the authors estimated the dis-
tance to the fault point. In general, a HIF tends to cause small variations
of voltage and current, which is a disadvantage for the techniques that
are based on traveling waves. In addition, the number and cost of
equipment used in these methodologies are expensive.
The second approach corresponds to the methods based on circuit
analysis in the time domain [11,12,14]. In [11] a HIFL method using
least squares is presented. This approach is based on a time domain
formulation, and uses voltage and current measurements at one-term-
inal.
The approach of circuit analysis in frequency domain is illustrated
in [12–14]. In this paper, a HIFL method based on the consideration of
the first, and third harmonics is proposed. The main characteristic of
this method is the use of synchronized phasor measurement units
(PMUs) in both terminals of the transmission line for the estimation of
the fault distance. In [12], a HIFL mathematical formulation, using the
HIF model presented in [21], is proposed. The method uses measure-
ments in a single terminal of the line and allows estimating the fault
distance and the parameters of the HIF. Similarly, another work on this

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: chenaoa@uninorte.edu.co (C. Orozco-Henao).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijepes.2019.105387
Received 15 November 2018; Received in revised form 16 May 2019; Accepted 24 June 2019
Available online 28 June 2019
0142-0615/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
J. Doria-Garcia, et al. Electrical Power and Energy Systems 114 (2020) 105387

third approach, based on apparent impedance, is presented in [13].
This method was formulated in phase components, and in the frequency
domain. The method uses synchronized measurements in both term-
inals of the line, and uses least squares for the estimation of the fault
distance.
All of the above methods have the following shortcomings:
• it is necessary to know the fault type before making the estimation
of the fault distance;
• they are formulated to determine HIF, but LIF are out of reach; and
• detection of the fault occurrence.
In Fig. 1, ZTHA and VTHA correspond to the Thevenin’s equivalent of
area A; ZTHB and VTHB correspond to Thevenin’s equivalent of area B; l is
the line section length (km); x is the fault distance (km); ZL is the line
series impedance matrix (ohms/km); VS and VR are the respective vec-
tors of three-phase voltages at S and R buses (Voltage); IS and IR are the
vectors of three-phase line currents (Amps) at S and R buses; and fi-
nally, HIF is the non-linear model of the high impedance fault.
The circuital equations that represent the model of Fig. 1 are given
in (1) and (2).
(1)
VS = x·ZL·IS + VF ,

VR = (l x )·IR + VF . (2)
This research presents a high and low impedance faults location
Subtracting Eq. (2) from (1), the resulting equation is rewritten as
method based on impedance. The mathematical formulation is com-
shown in (3).
posed by a generalized equation for fault distance estimation, which
does not depend on the fault type. To solve the problem, the least VS VR l·ZL·IR = x·[ZL·(IS + IR )]. (3)
squares method is used, and the voltage and current measurements
Equation (3) is represented in the form A·x = b , obtaining (4).
available in both terminals are considered.
The main contributions of this work to the state of the art are: Aa ba
Ab · x = bb ,
• The proposed formulation can be applied to the location of both low Ac bc (4)
and high impedance faults.
• A generalized equation is formulated for the estimation of the fault where:
distance, which does not depend on the fault type, reducing the Aa Zaa (ISa + IRa) + Zab (ISb + IRb) + Zac (ISc + IRc )
information for the method application and eliminating a source of Ab = [ZL·(IS + IR )] = Zba (ISa + IRa) + Zbb (ISb + IRb) + Zbc (ISc + IRc )
error in the fault location process. Ac (5)
•
Zca (ISa + IRa) + Zcb (ISb + IRb) + Zcc (ISc + IRc )
Detection of a fault condition or normal operating condition in the
EPS in the same fault location process. ba Vsa VRa + l·(Zaa IRa + Zab IRb + Zac IRc )
bb = [Vs VR + l· ZL·IR] = Vsb VRb + l·(Zba IRa + Zbb IRb + Zbc IRc )
The remaining of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 pre- bc Vsc VRc + l·(Zca IRa + Zcb IRb + Zcc IRc )
sents the generalized mathematical formulation for the fault distance
(6)
estimation. Section 3 presents the generalized algorithm for FL. Section
4 presents a case study and Section 5 results analysis. The conclusions Thus, the problem is defined with three equations and one un-
of this work are presented in Section 6. known, since the distance should match for all phases. To solve for x in
(3), it is necessary to estimate the inverse of matrix A. However, A is not
a square matrix. In addition, considering the presence of some possible
2. Generalized mathematical formulation to fault location noises, unknown and non-modeled effects, it is proposed to use the least
estimation squares method to estimate x , thus minimizing the estimation error. To
achieve a solution to this problem, two steps must be taken: obtaining
The formulation presented below corresponds to a generalization of an overdetermined system of (3), and finding the inverse of matrix A,
the methodology proposed by Ferraz in [13,23]. A HIF occurs when a which is made by means of the pseudo-inverse matrix and applying a
feeder comes into contact with a poor conductivity surface [28], which least squares estimator [13].
places the HIFs within the group of ground faults. There are seven types The overdetermined system is obtained by taking advantage of the
of ground faults (single-phase faults A-g, B-g and C-g; double-phase to non-linear characteristic of high impedance faults. This characteristic
ground faults AB-g, BC-g and CA-g; and three-phase to ground faults affects the waveform of the voltage and current signals measured at the
ABC-g). In [23], an equation to estimate the fault distance for each terminals of the line. Therefore, considering the foregoing, it is possible
ground fault type, is proposed. In this section, an analysis of the to obtain a set of N phasors for the voltage and current signals measured
equations proposed in [13,23] is carried out to demonstrate that it is at both ends.
only necessary the formulation for three-phase ground faults to perform Consider the synchronized measurements of voltage and current at
the location of the other types of ground faults. Additionally, we ana- both ends of the transmission line presented in Fig. 1. Also, consider
lyzed the application of the method for LIF and to the fault detection that the sampling frequency of the signal is fs = 1 Ts , where Ts is the
process in EPS. sampling period and the fundamental frequency of the EPS is f0 . Thus,
For this analysis, consider the EPS shown in Fig. 1, which illustrates the sampling rate or samples per cycle are defined as N = fs f0 [13]. The
a fault in the transmission line connecting buses S and R. set of N phasors can be expressed by (7).

DFR DFR

Area A Area B
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of a faulted transmission line.

2
J. Doria-Garcia, et al. Electrical Power and Energy Systems 114 (2020) 105387

T 1
2 n0 + (N 1)
pk e j 2Nk Aa Aa Aa
T
ba
N k = n0
0 0 0 0
2 n0 + N
pk e j 2Nk 0 n0 0 n0 0 n0 0 n0
[Pn0, Pn0 + 1, , Pn0 + (N T
1) ] = N k = n0 + 1
x = · ·
Aa Aa Aa ba
2 n 0 + 2(N 1)
pk e j 2Nk 0 0 0 0
N k = n 0 + (N 1) (7) 0 n 0+ (N 1) 0 n0 + (N 1) 0 n0 + (N 1) 0 n0 + (N 1)

Where Pi represents the phasor i of voltage (Vs, VR ) or current (IS , IR), (12)
at someone of the line terminals, n 0 is an arbitrary sample reference and Reorganizing (12) and carrying out the corresponding algebraic
pk corresponds to the sample k of the voltage or current signal. operations, an expression for the fault distance, x , is obtained as pre-
For this proposal, we consider that the DFRs register at least three sented in (13).
cycles in the fault signal and the last two cycles are taken to obtain the
N
set of N phasors. Through the set of N phasors expressed in (7) and x =
N
Aai bai Aai2
substituting in (4), an overdetermined system is obtained, as presented i=1
i=1 (13)
in (8).
Because (11) equals (13), it is shown that from the three-phase
Aa ba formulation, the estimation of single-phase faults is possible.
Ab bb
Ac bc 2.2. Two-phase ground fault
n0 n0
[An ]·x = [bn] = ·x =
Consider a two-phase ground fault in phases a and b in the EPS
Aa ba
presented in Fig. 1. Using the formulation presented in [13,23], the
Ab bb
estimation of the fault distance is obtained from (14).
Ac bc
n 0 + (N 1) n 0 + (N 1) (8) T 1 T
Aa Aa Aa Aa
x ab = ,
where [A]n 0 and [b]n0 are the matrices A and b for the set of phasors Ab Ab Ab Ab (14)
Vs, VR, IS andIR in n 0 . The second step to solve (8) for x is to obtain the
inverse of the matrix [An ]. Since the fault distance x is a scalar, such where Aa and Ab are the components of the faulted phases of the matrix
that x R+, we consider the expression given in (9) as a solution of (8). A given by (5) (being phases a and b in this case), and ba and bb are the
components of the faulted phases of b given by (6). By performing the
x = (|An |T |An |) 1·|An |T ·|bn| (9) corresponding matrix operations, an expression for x ab is determined, as
presented in (15).
The solution of (9) is obtained by the application of a least squares
estimator [29]. In [23], Ferraz et al. only takes the components of An
( ) ( )
N 1 N
x ab = (Aai2 + Abi2 ) (Aai bai + Aai bai )
that involve the phases in electrical fault in order to solve (9). The i=1 i=1 (15)
above presents two problems. The first is that an equation is derived for Now consider the three-phase formulation to estimate the fault
each type of fault. The second is that it is necessary to know the type of distance given by (9). Applying the operating conditions defined by a
fault to estimate the fault distance. Sections 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 show that two-phase ground fault ab, the currents and voltages of the non-faulty
using the three-phase formulation it is possible to estimate any type of phases are ISc = IRc and Vsc VRc + l·(Zca IRa + Zcb IRb + Zcc IRc ) = 0 ,
ground fault. respectively. Therefore, the components Ac bc 0 . Substituting these
considerations in (9), Eq. (16) is obtained.
2.1. Single-phase ground fault T 1 T
Aa Aa Aa ba
Ab Ab Ab bb
Consider a single-phase fault in phase a in the EPS of Fig. 1. From 0 n0 0 n0 0 n0 0 n0
the formulation presented in [13,23], the estimation of the fault dis- x = · ·
tance is obtained using (10). Aa Aa Aa ba
Ab Ab Ab bb
x a = (|Aa |T |Aa |) 1 |Aa |T |ba| (10) 0 n0 + (N 1) 0 n0 + (N 1) 0 n 0+ (N 1) 0 n0 + (N 1)

where Aa is the component of the faulted phase (in this case phase a) of (16)
the matrix A given by (5), and ba is the component of the faulted phase By reorganizing (16) and performing the corresponding algebraic
of b given by (6). Performing the corresponding matrix operations, an operations, an expression for the fault distance x ab is obtained as pre-
expression is determined for x a as presented in (11). sented in (17). From this equation, the expression (15) could be ob-
tained. This shows that from the three-phase formulation it is possible
N
N to estimate two-phase faults.
xa = Aai bai Aai2
i=1
(11)
( ) ( )
i=1 N N 1 N N
x ab = Aai2 + Abi2 + 0 Aai bai + Abi bbi + 0
i=1 i=1 i=1 i=1
If we tried to estimate the distances of the fault in phase a using the
(17)
components of the healthy phases shown in (8) (b o c), xb and x c would
tend to infinity.
Now consider the three-phase formulation to estimate the fault 2.3. Formulation for low impedance faults
distance given by (9). Applying the operating conditions defined by a
single-phase fault in phase a, the currents in the heathy phases are Another important feature discussed in this paper is the application
ISb = IRb and ISc = IRc ; therefore, the components Ab Ac 0 . Si- of the formulation for linear LIF. The above is possible since the for-
milarly, applying Kirchhoff’s voltage law, VSb VRb + l·(Zba IRa mulation does not depend on the HIF model. Therefore, for a linear
+ Zbb IRb + Zbc IRc ) =0 and VSc VRc + l·(Zca IRa + Zcb IRb + Zcc IRc ) =0 ; fault of low impedance, the voltage and current phasors estimated by
therefore bb bc 0 . Considering this, and substituting the corre- (7) would all be almost equal. This is true given the linear characteristic
sponding values in (9), (12) gives the estimated fault distance. of the fault. Thus, [Ai ]n0 [Ai ]n 0 + 1 [Ai ]n0 + 2 [Ai ]n 0 + (N 1) and

3
J. Doria-Garcia, et al.
Step 1: Data acquisition
( , ) consecutive phasors of voltage
No
L>N
Yes
There is no fault in
the lines
Step 4: Convergence criteria
Fig. 2. Flow chart of the proposed HIFL method.
[bi ]n 0 [bi ]n 0 + 1 [bi ]n 0+ 2 [bi ]n 0 + (N 1) . As an example, a single-
phase fault in a is analyzed. Eq. (13) is obtained by solving (9) and
considering that the phasors are equal, Eq. (18) can be deduced.
( ) ( ) NAa ba
N 1 N
x = Aa2 + 0 + 0 Aa ba + 0 + 0 =
i=1 i=1 NAa2
This shows that the proposed localization method estimates the
distance for both high and low impedance faults.
2.4. Fault detection in EPS
Since this is a two-terminal method, in the case that a fault
does not occur in the EPS or in a remote line, the matrices
[Ai ]n0 = [Ai ]n 0 + 1 = [Ai ]n0 + 2 = =[Ai ]n 0 + (N 1) = 0 , in the same way that
[bi ]n 0 = [bi ]n 0 + 1 = [bi ]n 0+ 2 = =[bi ]n 0 + (N 1) = 0 . Therefore, from (9)
the estimated fault distance tends to an indetermination x
cause the capacitive effect of the lines is not considered. Therefore, the
currents measured at both ends of the line are equal. However, if the
capacitive effect of the lines is significant, the currents measured at
both ends are almost equal, leading to x being a very large value.
Considering the above, it can be said that for values of x significantly
greater than the length of the transmission line under study, there is no
fault in it.
The main advantage of this fault detection process is its simplicity
and execution simultaneously with the FL process. Thus, for this pro-
posal, the fault detection and location process is performed in less than
three cycles after the fault occurs.
3. Generalized algorithm for high impedance fault location
Fig. 2 presents the generalized algorithm for the fault location
method proposed in this work.
The generalized algorithm consists of four steps: the first step cor-
responds to the acquisition of the voltage and current signals recorded
by the DFRs in both terminals of the line (vs, vR , iS , iR ). At this step, the
synchronized acquisition of the signals must be guaranteed or strategies
for synchronization must be implemented. Additionally, processing,
and smoothing techniques, as presented in [30] must be implemented
to reduce the natural noise associated with the measurement and ac-
quisition process. Subsequently, in step 2, the set of N consecutive
Electrical Power and Energy Systems 114 (2020) 105387
Start
Line L=1
Step 2: Estimation of the
Step 3: Solving (9) from Least
fundamental component of
squares method to estimate the
fault distance
and current from (7)
Yes
L=L+1
No
Show fault
distance
End
phasors is estimated by (7) using a mobile window algorithm as pre-
sented in [13,23]. Once the set of N phasors are obtained in step 3, the
overdetermined system given by (9) is solved using the least squares
method. Finally, the estimated fault distance x is compared to the
b
= a convergence criteria given in step 4. If x is not much larger than the
Aa
length of the transmission line under study lL , the fault is localized, and
(18) the fault distance equals the current value of x . If the distance to the
fault is much greater than the length of the line under study, the al-
gorithm analyzes the next transmission line; therefore, it returns to step
1. Considering an EPS with multiple consecutive lines, as shown in
Fig. 3, the described process is carried out until estimating x or until all
the EPS lines have been examined. If for the last line x lL , it is de-
termined that there is no fault in the EPS.
4. Case study
0 0 be-
Consider the EPS presented in Fig. 3 as the system to be studied.
The system consists of three main lines L1, L2 and L3; two adjacent
lines L4 and L5; and two external equivalents S1 and S2. The para-
meters of the elements of the EPS are presented in Table 1. The EPS was
simulated in ATP-EMTP and the proposed method was implemented in
MATLAB®.
All system lines have the same impedance in [ km]. However, their
lengths are different as shown in Table 1.
4.1. HIF model
The HIF model used for simulations was based on the proposed in
[13]. This model is composed of two antiparallel voltage sources con-
nected by a pair of diodes, to simulate the asymmetry between the
positive half cycle and the negative half cycle of the current wave. For
the study cases, currents with asymmetry of 20% were simulated; that
is, the amplitude of the positive half cycle is 20% greater than the ne-
gative half cycle. On the other hand, in the model an inductor and a
non-linear resistor (RF (t ) ) are used to introduce characteristics men-
tioned in [17,19–27] such as Buildup, Shoulder and the non-linearity of
the fault impedance. The degree of non-linearity is estimated as the
ratio of the sum of the powers of all harmonic components to the power
of the fundamental frequency.
The expression (19) defines the variation in time of RF (t ) .
4
J. Doria-Garcia, et al. Electrical Power and Energy Systems 114 (2020) 105387

Bus E Bus A Bus B Bus C Bus D Bus F Fig. 3. One-line diagram of the test EPS.
Zth1 ZL4 xZL1 (l-x)ZL1 ZL2 ZL3 ZL5 Zth2

DFR DFR DFR DFR DFR DFR

Vth1 Vth2
HIF

an t n + an 1 t n 1 + an 1 t n 2 + + a1 t + a0 ; if tst t tend
RF (t ) =
R end ; if t > tend
(19)

The HIF model was implemented in ATPDraw as shown in Fig. 4.

ATP uses the trapezoidal rule to calculate voltages and currents in in-
ductors and capacitors, however, abrupt changes caused by switches
can lead to numerical oscillation. Since there is a numerical oscillation
in the inductor voltage when the fault current is canceled by the action
of the anti-parallel diodes, it was necessary to program the inductor
response using the MODELS type-94 tool of the ATPDraw. The objective
of this is to change the default integration method to the second order
numerical integration method of Gear [12].
The proposed formulation is validated under two test conditions:
performance of the proposed method and sensitivity analysis of the
factors that affect its performance, as presented in Sections 4.2 and 4.1.
Fig. 4. (a) HIF model. (b) Implementation HIF model in ATP.

4.2. Performance of the proposed method

H0: µi = µj i j
To evaluate the performance of the method, three scenarios are
H1: µi µj at least one i (20)
considered. In the first scenario, the behavior of the proposed method is
validated for faults along line 1, and under the different types of ground
faults. In the second scenario, the detection capacity of the metho- where i represents all sets of levels so that if at least one set of levels has
dology is validated. Finally, the third scenario compares the perfor- a different mean, the null hypothesis is rejected in favor of the alter-
mance of the proposed method with an innovative method such as the native one.
Ferraz method [13]. The comparison is made using the conditions es- In the factor N, low impedance faults are considered of linear be-
tablished in scenario 1. Table 2 presents the conditions of the tests and havior. For this experiments design, these are represented as constant
Fig. 5 shows a flowchart explaining each study case. value resistances, which are defined in the Rf factor. However, high
impedance faults have a non-linear behavior and their resistance varies
over time.
4.3. Sensitivity analysis These faults are simulated as described in Section 4.1 and coeffi-
cients of the polynomial function of Rf (t ) for each fault are presented in
The sensitivity analysis is carried out through an experimental de- Table 4 and Fig. 6 shows their values over the time. The Rf factor de-
sign that aims to identify the factors that influence the accuracy of the fines the R end of the non-linear fault resistance. For R end equal to 50, 150
proposed method. In the design of the experiment a set of 7 factors were and 300 Ω, a non-linearity ratio of 40.488%, 21.179% and 41.297%,
considered, which are presented in Table 3 with their respective levels. respectively, was obtained.
In this experiment, we seek to verify if there is any significant difference On the other hand, the R factor evaluates the noise presence in the
between the means of each set of levels. The foregoing implies carrying voltage and current measurements recorded at both terminals of the
out a hypothesis test defined by (20). transmission line. The objective is to evaluate the dependence of the
proposed method on the exact knowledge of the measurements in both
Table 1 terminals. This noise was added to the signals by a Gaussian white noise
Parameters of the test EPS. function. The noise level reported in Table 3 corresponds to levels up to
External systems
10% of the signals in each terminal.
Source S1 Source S2 Other factor evaluated was the errors in the line parameters. This
Vth1 = 229.174 0 [kV ] Vth2 = 228.353 21. 8 [kV ] method is based on the impedance estimation. Therefore, errors in the
Zs11 = Zs12 = 0.238 + j5. 7132 [ ] Zs21 = Zs22 = 0.238 + j6. 19 [ ] line parameters must affect its performance. The objective of this sce-
Zs10 = 2.738 + j10 [ ] Zs20 = 0.833 + j5. 118 [ ] nario is to observe how the performance of this method is affected by
Transmition line errors of up to 5% in line parameters. For this, errors of ± 5% was
Line impedance-Zl added to the line parameters in fault condition.
Zlaa = 0.1137 + j0. 7685 [ km] Zlab = 0.0549 + j0. 3654 [ km] Given the significant number of fault simulations required for this
Zlbb = 0.1137 + j 0. 7685 [ km] Zlac = 0.0553 + j0. 3127 [ km]
experiments design, the simulations were carried out using an auto-
Zlcc = 0.1137 + j 0. 7685 [ km] Zlbc = 0.0557 + j0. 3644 [ km]
matic fault simulator based on the work presented in [31,32].
Line length In addition, the experiment was carried out according to de meth-
Zl1 Zl2 Zl3 Zl4 Zl5
odology explained bellow. Step 1: randomly select a level of each factor
80 km 70 km 90 km 15 km 20 km
of the experiment. Step 2: Run the simulation with the selected

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J. Doria-Garcia, et al. Electrical Power and Energy Systems 114 (2020) 105387

Table 2
Studied test cases.
Scenarios Description Faults

1 – Individual performs of proposed method Fault type: single-phase faults A-g. B-g, C-g, double-phase-fault to ground AB-g, BC-g, CA-g, three-phase faults ABC-g 140
Fault resistance: 76 Ω
Fault distance: Line 1 from 0 to 10% in steps of 1%, 10–100% in steps of 10%
2 – Fault detection Faults on line section L1, L2, L3 form 0 to 100% 55
No fault: variation of ZS2 from 75% to 125% in steps of 5%
Capacitor switching: Capacitor bank of 30, 40 and 50 MVA switching at 0°, 45°, 90° and 135°
3 – Comparison test Methods: Proposed method (PM) and Ferraz method (FM) 154
Total 349

Studies test case

Scenario = 1 Scenario = 2 Scenario = 3

(Individual performs) (Fault detection) (Comparison test)

Select a fault type Fault event: For a three- Select a fault type and a
and a fault distance phase fault, select a fault distance and run.
and run simulation. fault line and distance
and run simulation.

PM
Fault location: proposed PM
method (PM)
No FM
No
Event
Scenario completed?
completed? Compare
Yes

Yes No fault: select an event of

charge variation and run.
No
PM Scenario
completed?

No Yes
Event
completed?
End
Yes

No fault: select an event of

charge variation and run.

PM

No
Scenario
completed?

Yes

Fig. 5. Flowchart of the studies cases.

6
J. Doria-Garcia, et al. Electrical Power and Energy Systems 114 (2020) 105387

Table 3
Studied test cases for sensitivity analysis.
Factors Levels Number of levels

xp : Fault point distance Steps of 10%, from the beginning to the end of the line. (0%, 10%, etc.) 11
TF : Fault type Single-phase faults A-g, B-g, C-g 7
Double-phase faults to ground AB-g, BC-g, CA-g and Three-phase faults ABC-g
R : Noise Clear, 15 dB and 30 dB 3
Rf : Fault resistance. 50 , 150 and 300 3
N : Fault nature Low Impedance Faults (LIF) and High Impedance Faults (HIF) 2
El : Percentage of error in line parameters −5%, 0% and + 5% 3
A : Fault incidence angle. 0°, 45°, 90° and 225° 4
TNE : Total number of experiments TNE = r
n 33,264
i = 1 ni
where r is the number of repetitions and ni is the number of levels of the factor i

Table 4
Coefficients of the polynomial function of Rf (t ) for each fault.

R end [ ] a8 a7 a6 a5 a4 a3 a2 a1 a0

50 1, 006e7 2, 778e7 3, 185e 7 1, 961e7 7, 005e6 1, 4675e6 1, 7476e5 1, 1190e 4 426, 37

150 3, 0183e 7 8, 3331e7 9, 5536e 7 5, 8819e7 2, 1014e 7 4, 4024e6 5, 2429e5 3, 3569e 4 1279, 0965
300 6, 0366e7 1, 6666e8 1, 9107e8 1, 1764e8 4, 2028e 7 8, 8047e6 1, 0486e6 6, 7139e 4 2558, 193

3000 5.1.1. Scenario 1 – individual performance of proposed method

This scenario evaluates the effect of the location of the fault, and the
2500 fault type in the performance of the proposed formulation. Fig. 7 pre-
50 [ Ω ]
sents the results obtained for each fault type.
150 [Ω ]
From Fig. 7, a similar behavior is observed for all fault types, where
300 [Ω ]
2000 the greatest estimation error presented by the formulation is for faults
Resistance [ω ]

at the beginning of the transmission line. This error is lower than

1500 0.25%, which corresponds to less than 200 m on a line of 80 km.
However, it is observed that the initial error decreases rapidly for faults
estimates from 1% to 100% of the line; where, the error is less than
1000
0.03%, which corresponds to less than 30 m. The above shows an
adequate precision of the proposed method for these two factors.
500
5.1.2. Scenario 2 – fault detection
In this scenario, the ability of the proposed method to detect faults
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 in transmission lines is evaluated. For this process, faults are simulated
time [s] in lines L1, L2 and L3 of the EPS presented in Fig. 3. The faults are
simulated in steps of 10% of the line length. Simultaneous faults are not
Fig. 6. Resistance variation over time. considered. Furthermore, variations from 75% to 125% of the im-
pedance of the external equivalent S2 in steps of 5% are made to ob-
configuration. Step 3: Save and export voltage and current measure- serve if the proposed formulation observes them as fault conditions.
ments at the line terminals of interest and Step 4: Fault location Additionally, events of capacitor switching were carried out. It is con-
method. sidered the entry of a capacitor bank at Bus E of the EPS presented in
Fig. 3. The bank takes the values of 30, 40 or 50 MVA and incidence
angles of 0, 45, 90 and 135°. The event 30 MVA − 0° was not executed.
5. Results and discussion The results are shown in Table 5.
Table 4 shows the confusion matrix of the faults located by the
The results obtained with the proposed formulation are evaluated proposed method, where the faults reported in the diagonal of the table
considering the relative error given by (21). correspond to the well-located faults, and the faults reported outside
the diagonal indicate the faults wrongly located. Then, it is possible to
xr xe
% = %
(21) conclude that the method correctly detected all the validated events.
l

where % is the error of the estimation of the fault distance in per-
centage, x r is the real distance to fault point, x e is the distance estimated
by the proposed formulation, and l is the length of the transmission line
where the faults are simulated. Following, the results of the tests
mentioned in Section 4 are analyzed.
5.1. Results: performance of proposed method
In Sections 5.1.1, 5.1.2 and 5.1.3, the results for the scenarios of this
test are presented.
5.1.3. Scenario 3 – comparison test
The performance of the proposed formulation was compared with
the method proposed by Ferraz et al. in [13,23]. The Ferraz method
(FM) and the proposed method (PM) were compared using scenario 1.
Fig. 8 presents the results obtained.
From Fig. 8, it is observed that the performance of both methods for
three-phase faults is the same, since their error distributions are equal.
This occurs because for this type of faults, the mathematical formula-
tion for both methods is the same. However, for single and double
phase faults, a decrease in the fault estimation error is observed, which
is close to 0% for the proposed method. These results show that the

7
J. Doria-Garcia, et al. Electrical Power and Energy Systems 114 (2020) 105387

0.05

-0.05

Error [%] -0.1

-0.15

-0.2

-0.25
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Fault distance [%]

Faults ABC-g Faults A-g Faults B-g Faults C-g Faults AB-g Faults AC-g Faults BC-g

Fig. 7. Individual performance of proposed method.

Table 5 The above occurs for factors D, E and G: nature, R-fault and angle of
Confusion matrix for fault detection test. incidence, respectively; therefore, it is possible to reject it as an influ-
Actual location of Estimated location of the fault ential factor in the sensitivity of the proposed method.
the fault On the other hand, the P value for the other factors indicates sta-
Fault in Fault in Fault in No fault Capacitor tistical significance in the model, which allows rejecting the null hy-
line 1 line 2 line 3 switching pothesis in favor of the alternative one. The ANOVA residues were used
Fault in line 1 11 0 0 0 0
to verify compliance with the criteria of normality, independence, and
Fault in line 2 0 11 0 0 0 homoscedasticity as shown in Fig. 9.
Fault in line 3 0 0 11 0 0 Analyzing Table 5, the values of: Sum of Squares, degrees of
No fault 0 0 0 11 0 freedom, Mean Sum Square and F ratio; they present lower values for
Capacitor switching 0 0 0 0 11
factors: nature, R-fault and angle of incidence, which support the result of
the P value. By analyzing those same parameters, we conclude that
generalized method of location proposed here does not require probably the next least significant factor is the Fault type.
knowledge of the fault type and its performance is comparable or better For this experiment, the Fault type was divided into levels per phase
than the performance presented by current state-of-the-art methods, as shown in Table 3; that is, the single-phase faults (Ag, Bg and Cg) as a
such as the Ferraz method [13,23]. single level, double-phase faults (AB-g, BC- g and CA-g) as a single level
and three-phase faults (ABC-g) in a single level. The ANOVA process
was carried out again considering only the single-phase faults, and then
5.2. Sensitivity analysis with double-phase faults only. Tables 7 and 8 present the results of the
new ANOVAs.
The results of the sensitivity analysis were developed through an The P value obtained for the Fault type factor allows us to assume
analysis of variance, ANOVA. This statistical analysis seeks to de- that the phase in the fault type is not statistically significant to ANOVA.
termine which factors are not significant in the model studied. The The above allows to group the single-phase faults as a level, double-
results of the ANOVA are presented in Table 6. phase faults as another level; and finally, three-phase faults as another
If the value of P is greater than 0.05 for some factor, it is considered level, decreasing the number of levels of the Fault Type factor to three.
that this factor is not statistically significant for the model studied [33].

Outlier
Upper extreme
Q3+1.5IQ
0.03

0.02

0.01
Error [%]

Upper quartile Q3
(75th percentile)
0

IQ
-0.01 Median

-0.02 Lower quartile Q1

(25th percentile)

PM FM PM FM PM FM PM FM PM FM PM FM PM FM Lower extreme
Three-phase Single-phase Single-phase Single-phase Double-phase Double-phase Double-phase Q1-1.5IQ

faults fault A-g fault B-g fault C-g fault AB-g fault AC-g fault AB-g
Fig. 8. Comparison test.

8
J. Doria-Garcia, et al. Electrical Power and Energy Systems 114 (2020) 105387

Table 6 Table 7
ANOVA for each factor. ANOVA for each factor: single-phase.
Source SS df MSS F-Ratio P-Value Source SS df MSS F-Ratio P-Value
Principal effects Principal effects

A: Line percentage [%] 1,7283E7 10 1,7283E6 185309,18 0,0000 A: Line percentage [%] 7,52174E6 10 752174, 61289,30 0,0000
B: Fault type 5778,68 6 963,114 103,27 0,0000 B: Fault type 10,1076 2 5,05381 0,41 0,6625
C: Noise, S/N [dB] 59118,1 2 29559,0 3169,33 0,0000 C: Noise, S/N [dB] 23007,7 2 11503,8 937,37 0,0000
D: Nature 23,738 1 23,738 2,55 0,1106 D: Nature 7,73217 1 7,73217 0,63 0,4273
E: R-fault [Ohm] 6,12109 2 3,06055 0,33 0,7203 E: R-fault [Ohm] 9,70295 2 4,85148 0,40 0,6735
F: Error in line [%] 959443, 2 479721, 51435,89 0,0000 F: Error in line [%] 201154, 2 100577, 8195,31 0,0000
G: Angle of incidence 5,70585 3 1,90195 0,20 0,8937 G: Angle of incidence 10,0436 3 3,34788 0,27 0,8451

This factor was coded numerically as Fault type: 1, 2 and 3, and the Table 8
ANOVA process was carried out again. The results of the ANOVA are ANOVA for each factor: two-phase.
presented in Table 9. Source SS df MSS F-Ratio P-Value
The results obtained with the new regrouping of the factor Fault Principal effects
type, show that this factor is still significant for the method. However,
A: Line percentage [%] 7,5305E6 10 753050, 57196,21 0,0000
its effect is greatly reduced when analyzing by fault type, as demon-
B: Fault type 22,1084 2 11,0542 0,84 0,4319
strated by the results of the ANOVAS of Tables 7 and 8. C: Noise, S/N [dB] 19190,0 2 9595,02 728,77 0,0000
The previous analysis allows to determine the statistically sig- D: Nature 34,1817 1 34,1817 2,60 0,1071
nificant factors. However, it is of great interest to know which are the E: R-fault [Ohm] 4,4112 2 2,2056 0,17 0,8458
factors that have the greatest effect on the proposed formulation for FL. F: Error in line [%] 373628, 2 186814, 14189,04 0,0000
G: Angle of incidence 3,62116 3 1,20705 0,09 0,9647
This can be obtained by performing a multivariate regression model to
estimate the expected value of the method, based on the factors con-
sidered. The model obtained is given by (22). This model has a coefficient of determination of 94.97%. From (22)
x = 1, 7251 + 74, 7694· A + 0, 166941·B 3, 40781·C 130, 117·F it is observed that the most significant factors in the estimation of the
fault distance are the factors A and F, which correspond to the per-
(22)
centage of line where the fault occurs and the error in the parameters of

0.15 3

0.1 2
Auto-correlation factor

0.05 1
Residuals

0 0

-0.05 -1

-0.1 -2

-0.15 -3
0 5 10 15 20 25 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Delay Predicted
a) Independence test b) Homoscedasticity test.
4500

4000

3500 Normal Distribution

3000
Frequency

2500

2000

1500

1000

500

0
-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
Residuals
c) Distribution test
Fig. 9. Normality, Independence, and homoscedasticity test.

9
J. Doria-Garcia, et al. Electrical Power and Energy Systems 114 (2020) 105387

Table 9 measurements at both terminals of the transmission line, as well as the

ANOVA for each factor: coded. line parameters. The mathematical formulation uses a generalized
Source SS df MSS F-Ratio P-Value equation for the estimation of the fault distance, which does not depend
Principal effects on the fault type and can be extended to locate high and low impedance
faults.
A: Line percentage [%] 1,7283E7 10 1,7283E6 77166,82 0,0000
The study of the performance of the proposed method shows sa-
B: Fault type 5746,47 2 2873,23 128,29 0,0000
C: Noise, S/N [dB] 59118,1 2 29559,0 1319,78 0,0000
tisfactory results with a maximum error of 0.25%. The performance of
D: Nature 23,738 1 23,738 1,06 0,3032 the method shows that for 80% of the cases (faults located between
E: R-fault [Ohm] 6,12109 2 3,06055 0,14 0,8723 10% and 100% of the line) the estimation error is lower than 0.015%;
F: Error in line [%] 959443, 2 479721, 21419,04 0,0000 that is, an error of 12 m over 80 km of the line in the case study. Also, a
G: Angle of incidence 5,70585 3 1,90195 0,08 0,9683
comparison between the proposed method and the Ferraz method was
presented. The results obtained showed a better performance in the
20 proposed formulation compared to the Ferraz method for all the case
studies. In addition, unlike the Ferraz method, the proposed method
15
does not need to know the type of fault for the estimation.
10
Finally, the sensitivity study allowed to determine the factors that
5 mostly influence the accuracy of the method. Since the method is based
Error [%]

0
on impedance, it was expected that the percentage of line where fault
occurs (Factor A), and errors in line parameters (Factor F), were the
-5
factors that mostly affected the proposed approach, which is congruent
-10 with the result of the statistical analysis. The method shows to be
-15
sensitive to errors in line parameters, where it was observed that
for ± 5% errors in Factor F, the estimation error increases to ± 10% for
-20
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 most cases. The previous result shows the need for a good precision in
Fault distance [%] the line parameters as they are the inputs of the method. In addition, it
Line parameters error: 5% Line parameters error: 0% Line parameters error: -5%
is observed that the Fault nature (Factor D), Fault resistance (Factor E),
Noise (Factor C), and Fault incidence angle (Factor G) do not appear to
Fig. 10. Performance of proposed method: factors A and F. be significant for the scenarios evaluated. All the above, demonstrate
the potential of the formulation for real-life applications.
the transmission line. About the factors B (fault type) and C (noise),
Table 9 shows that there is no statistical evidence to assume that they Declaration of Competing Interest
are not significant. However, by comparing the coefficients of these
factors in (22) against the coefficients of A and F, it can be considered The authors declared that there is no conflict of interest.
that B and C are not relevant. Considering the above, the model is re-
duced as presented in (23). References

x = 1, 7251 + 74, 7694· A 130, 117· F
Considering only the factors that show to be significant (A and F),
Fig. 10 is obtained. In this figure, the behavior of the estimation error of
the fault distance ( x ) is shown, considering all the study cases facing
the percentage of line where the fault occurs (factor A), and errors in
the parameters of the transmission line (factor F, [ 5%, 0%, 5%]).
The results obtained in Fig. 10 are those expected from the analysis
of (23). There is a tendency to overestimate the fault distance when the
error in the line parameters is negative. This overestimation of the error
means that the proposed formulation estimates a distance to the fault
point greater than the actual one. This tendency increases as the error
in the parameters increases and is increasingly negative. For errors in
the positive line parameters, i.e., that the line impedance is greater than
the actual impedance, the proposed formulation tends to underestimate
the fault distance, as expected. Finally, it is possible to conclude that the
errors in the parameters of the line affect proportionally to the distance
estimated by the method and the factor A slightly displaces the error. In
general, it is observed that for more than 80% of the cases of the ex-
periment, the error in the estimation is less than 10%.
6. Conclusion
This paper presented an impedance-based FL method for high and
low impedance faults in transmission lines, using the least squares
method. Case studies show independence from the type of fault for the
estimation by the generalization of the method. The proposed method
showed to be effective for the fault detection and different scenarios
with faulty and healthy conditions were evaluated, showing adequate
accuracy. The method considers available voltage and current
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