A novel fault location method using traveling wave natural frequencies for transmission grid

An approach using traveling wave natural frequencies for fault location of transmission grid is proposed in this paper. The fault current data which are obtained from every bus bar are transformed into modal signals. Then the dominant natural frequencies are extracted from the modal signals using multiple signal classification (MUSIC) algorithm. With the natural frequencies the lengths of different traveling-wave route are calculated. Comparing the length of the traveling wave route with the line length, the fault line can be identified. Even if the current data of certain line is wrong or insufficient, the accurate fault location also can be determined by taking the natural frequencies of the adjacent line into account. Thus, the fault location of the transmission grid is achieved. The feasibility and effectiveness of the presented method is verified by PSCAD/EMTDC simulations.