Faulty Feeder Identification Based on Data Analysis and Similarity Comparison for Flexible Grounding System in Electric Distribution Networks

Reliability and safety are the most important indicators in the electric system. When a ground fault occurs, the electrical equipment and personnel will be greatly threatened. Due to the zero-sequence voltage/current sensor networks applied in the system, the fault identification and diagnosis technology are developing rapidly, including the application of ground fault suppression. A flexible grounding system (FGS) is a new technology applied to arc extinguishing in medium and high voltage electric distribution networks. Its characteristic is that when the single-phase ground fault occurs, the power-electronic-based device is put into the electric system to compensate and suppress the ground point current to be close to zero in a very short time. In order to implement the above process, the corresponding faulty feeder identification method needs to meet the requirements of rapidity and accuracy. In this article, based on the real-time sampled data from the zero-sequence current/voltage sensors, an improved faulty feeder identification method combining wavelet packet transform (WPT) and grey T-type correlation degree is proposed, which features both accuracy and rapidity. The former is used to reconstruct the transient characteristic signal, and the latter is responsible for calculating and comparing the similarity of relative variation trend. Simulation results verify the rationality and effectiveness of the proposed method and analysis.