Estimation of Fault Location Using PPU for Bolted and Non-bolted Faults in a LVDC Microgrid

Abstract

Finding location of the fault in a DC Microgrid is an important task that helps in expediting post-fault restoration of power. The main challenge in locating the fault location is the unpredictability of the fault impedance. In this paper, a power probe unit (PPU) based method is proposed for fault location estimation in a mono-pole low voltage direct current (LVDC) Microgrid. The proposed method comprises two techniques, the bisection method showed better results for bolted faults (zero fault impedance) and the error minimization approach showed better results for non-bolted faults (high fault impedance). In the case of a bolted fault, the error for fault location estimation is found to be satisfactory using the bisection method. The error for fault location estimation is found to be decent enough for non-bolted fault with high fault resistance using the error minimization approach. The methods have been validated using MATLAB/Simulink.