An impedance based fault location algorithm for tapped lines using local measurements

The tapped lines are usually used to supply a customer such as small communities or industrial facilities with an economic solution that is less expensive than building a full substation. Locating faults in such lines are difficult due to the effect of infeed/outfeed current from tapped lines as well as reactance effect. The proposed method applies generalized models of fault loop voltage and current to formulate the fault location algorithm. The derived algorithm has a very simple first-order formula and does not require knowledge of data from the other ends. This feature becomes more significant in the case of isolated rural areas where communicational link to exchange data with other ends may not exist. The result of the algorithm performance evaluation using simulations verifies the high accuracy of the method with regard to various equivalent source impedances, fault inception angles, fault resistances and locations as well as fault types.