A fault location method for distribution network based on SAE

Accurate fault location of distribution network enables the fault to be quickly found and eliminated. It saves the manpower and material resources of the line inspection, reduces the losses caused by power outages, and ensures the safe and stable operation of the system. The traditional fault location method in distribution network uses the amplitude of voltage and current to calculate the fault distance without using the phase angle information. The distribution network operates in a variety of ways with fewer observation points. The actual line parameters of the system are inconsistent with the simulation parameters. At the same time, there is the access of distributed generation. All these make it is difficult to locate faults accurately in traditional distribution networks. With the application of the Micro Synchronous Phasor Measurement Unit (μPMU), phase angle information can also be used for fault location. Based on Stack Auto-encoder (SAE), in this paper, the voltage and current amplitude, and phase angle of the double-ended μPMU are used to train the SAE to calculate the fault distance. Line parameters, ground resistance and fault type are changed during training. A simulation model is built in PSCAD. The results show that this method is effective in fault location and robust against the effects of ground resistance and fault type. The effect of fault location will be very poor if only the amplitude of voltage and current is used.