Fault branch determination method based on the amplitude information of the first wave head of the initial traveling wave of the fault

Abstract In order to solve the difficult problem of fault branch determination in multi-branch distribution networks, the transmission characteristics of fault traveling waves in the distribution line are analyzed. The variation law of fault traveling wave amplitude with fault distance and frequency is deduced theoretically, and the reasons for the difficult determination of fault branch in the distribution line are revealed. A fault branch determination method based on the energy spectral density of the amplitude of the first wave head of the fault initial traveling wave is proposed. The reference node and the reference end of distribution networks are defined. The ratio of the intrinsic amplitude matrix to the real fault matrix before offline is calculated. The fault branch determination matrix is established to realize the reliable determination of the fault branch. PSCAD is used to build a 10 kV multi-dominant network model to simulate various fault conditions to verify the fault branch determination method. The simulation results show that the method can effectively identify the fault branch and has strong reliability.