Accurate fault location technology for power lines
Project Partners: Ausnet, Powercor
This project aims to develop an innovative technology that can accurately locate faults on long rural power lines, including low-energy ones. By eliminating the need for lengthy inspection patrols, this technology aims to reduce the duration of electricity supply outages and expedite supply restoration providing the following three critical public benefits-
- Public Health: With the increasing risk of heatwaves due to climate change and an aging population, ensuring a reliable power supply is crucial for mitigating health risks associated with extreme temperatures.
- Preserve fire-safety benefits of new powerline technologies: Victoria leads the world in new technologies (REFCLs) to reduce energy release in powerline faults to a level where they cannot start fires. However, REFCLs leave little or no visible evidence of the point of the fault for patrols to locate and repair it. If the fault cannot be identified, the fire-safety technology must be bypassed to reveal the fault location to enable supply restoration. This ‘last resort’ has been shown to start fires.
- Enhance Community Fire Management Capability: Prolonged power outages in rural areas can heighten the risk of fires, as it hampers access to essential warnings and advice through disrupted telecommunications infrastructure. Our technology minimises supply disruptions and contributes to a safer environment for rural communities.
Cutting-Edge Fault Location Technique:
The team from Monash University has developed a promising fault location technique, which has been successfully tested on real power networks in Europe and China. This patented technology utilises a single measurement point installed at zone substations to pinpoint faults in complex branched networks, including overhead lines and cables.
Adapting the Technology for Australian Powerline Networks:
Further research is required to ensure the compatibility of our fault location technique with the unique characteristics of Australian powerline networks. This project focuses on investigating how this technique can be applied to long and branched networks across Australia.
Methodology:
Simulation models of test networks are required for fault analysis and development of the fault location method. The models will use network topology and data of powerlines and other assets. The network businesses will provide this information from their internal database and recent Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) surveys. The provided data will calculate ground clearances and conductor spacing for the HV feeders. The EMTR-based fault location method uses travelling waves originating from a fault and propagating in power lines. Hence, electromagnetic transient (EMT) simulation models will be created in the EMTP simulation environment. A semi-automated process will be developed to import the LiDAR and asset data and build the simulation models.
The models will be validated using data recorded for known fault/switching events, provided the measurements are available. Travelling waves from switching and faults reveal a network’s electrical characteristics and boundary conditions. They will be used to infer information on the propagation speed of waves and the characteristic impedance of lines to validate the simulation models.
Electromagnetic transient simulation of complex networks is computationally intensive. Efficient simulation techniques and parallel computation methods will be applied. EMTR has good potential for parallel processing – both within a TW simulation and between TW simulations for different candidate fault locations.
The original fault location method tested in Switzerland and China will then be applied to the developed test models. The performance of this method in terms of location accuracy, fault impedance and coverage will be assessed. The potential failure points will be identified and further explored in the later stages.
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Categories: New Technologies