CHAPTER IV

TRANSMISSION LINE FAULT DETECTION USING PHASOR

MEASUREMENT UNIT

Power quality event (voltage sag waveform) generated and simulated in previous
chapter, is required to be analyzed for fault detection/location in transmission line. The
phase angle of voltage sag may not be precisely detected by conventional methods.
Whenever, there is a fault in transmission line, the line parameters such as voltage,
current, power flow, and phase angles of voltage and current are affected. The voltage
angles throughout the power grid buses usually are not measured directly because of the
geographical separation distance between the buses or nodes. However, times stamped
measurements are used to indirectly compute the angle. In this chapter, transmission line
fault (voltage sag) has been detected using phasor measurement unit (PMU). The
simulation study is carried out in MATLAB. The location of a fault in transmission line
due to single line to ground fault (SLGL) is detected using DIgSILENT (software tool).

4.1 INTRODUCTION
Presently the electric power grid is undergoing a significant transformation into an
intelligent, reliable, secure and fully automated grid which is called the smart grid. Power
grid is subjected to a wide range of power quality disturbances due to many reasons.
Despite disturbances, power supply should be continuous without any interruptions.
Therefore, in order to monitor power system fault, a monitoring system should be devised
to supervise, monitor and control the power system during disturbances and to continue
its operation (Chakrabarti et al. 2009).
With the increasing scale and complexity of wide area power system network due to
deployment of smart grid technologies, the probability of power system fault which could
occur at any voltage level, is also increasing rapidly. About 2/3rd faults in the power
system occur on transmission lines. The occurrence of faults in a transmission line is
uncertain. There are various reasons of fault. If a fault is not detected, many effects on a
power system have been observed. A fault in power system results in power quality and

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damage of power system. So, it becomes necessary to detect fault on the transmission line
and clear the fault as soon as possible in order not to cause damages (Zhao et al. 2014).
There are various detection methods of power quality events (Ding et al. 2006; Ding et al.
2009; Poisson et al. 1998). The rms voltage value is applied most broadly in PQ
monitoring. According to (Wang et al. 2002) the one cycle rms voltage shall be
compared with a threshold every half cycle, for the detection of voltage sag. Once an
event is detected, its indices are calculated and stored.
The rms method represents one cycle historical average value, not instantaneous value
which can lead to long detection time when voltage sag has occurred (Ding et al. 2006).
Also, another drawback of rms is its dependency on the size of sample window and on
the time interval for updating the values. The window size is selected from a half cycle of
the power system frequency up to any multiple of half cycles.
A sudden change in magnitude of a voltage supply is not immediately detected using the
rms calculation, it being a necessary that the new value of the voltage after the changes is
entirely within the sampling window to obtain its correct magnitude. This method is
simple and easy to implement but it does not give information about the phase angle of
voltage during the event or the point on the wave where the event begins.
The voltage sag also is detected by peak voltage method and missing voltage method
(Tunaboylu et al. 1998). The significant advantage of peak detection method over other
methods is that it needs only single phase values. The comparison verifies the ability of
this method in detecting the peak value of input signal in the least possible time. The
detection took at least a quarter of a cycle.
In missing voltage method, the missing voltage is obtained by subtracting the actual
instantaneous value from the desired instantaneous voltage. The start and end of voltage
sags are determined by missing voltage. Furthermore, it gives a more accurate indication
of the duration of the event. The comparison of different voltage sag detection techniques
is presented in (Alonso et al. 2009).
To overcoming the problem of delay in detection time shown by other detection
techniques, phase angle jump is used for voltage sag detection. The conventional methods
do not precisely detect the phase angle jump of voltage sag.

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The remaining sections cover voltage sag detection using phasor measurement unit and
fault location in transmission lines.

4.2 TRANSMISSION LINE FAULT (VOLTAGE SAG) DETECTION USING

PHASOR MEASUREMENT UNIT
In recent years, major efforts have been started to the exploration and development of
new methodologies that detect faults that occur in the transmission and distribution lines.
There are various methods exist in literature for monitoring, detecting and locating faults
on power transmission and distribution system (Jiang et al. 2000; Wang et al. 2007; Zhao
et al. 2014). When faults occur in the power system, then, there is significant changes in
the system quantities like over current, over or under power, power factor, impedance,
frequency and power or current direction.
Most of methods for fault detection, utilize phasor measurements of voltage and current
of buses located different points in power system. The phasor data provides information
of pre fault or post fault conditions. The phasor information enables system analysts to
determine the exact sequence of events which have led to the blackouts.
The PMU based fault location technique is able to detect the fault through synchronized
fault voltages which are monitored by neighbouring PMU installed nodes. Based on these
fault node voltages, which are measured by PMUs, line currents between these nodes are
calculated (Jiang, et al. 2000; Wang, et al. 2007).

4.2.1 Fundamental of Synchrophasor Measurement Technology

Synchrophasor measurement technology has gained significant attention after recent
historic blackouts. The synchrophasor measurement technology is an important and
promising part of WAMS, has the potential of becoming the backbone for real time
monitoring of power grid (Chakrabarti et al. 2009).
The general objective installation of PMUs activities throughout the world is to
eventually make a transition from the traditional SCADA based measurement system to a
more advanced and accurate measurement system that used the synchronized
measurements from geographically distant dispersed locations and increase the
situational awareness by monitoring a wide area of the power system in real time.

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PMUs are capable of directly measuring frequency, ROCOF, voltage and current
waveforms along with phase angle differences at high sampling rates and accuracies (Fan
and Centeno 2007). All this measured PQ information should be synchronized with a
high accuracy to a common reference time provided by GPS (Phadke and Thorp 2008).
Due to the advancement in instrumentation and signal processing and satellite
communication technologies, time frame of synchronized information has been steadily
reduced from minutes, to seconds, milliseconds, and now microseconds.
Initially, the cost of PMU was high, presently the cost of PMUs deployment is decreasing
due to advancement in technologies and now, a number of manufacturers are offering or
developing products using PMUs either with phasor measurement facilities alone
(standalone PMUs) or with additional protective relaying features (integrated PMUs).
PMU is programmed to store data triggered by events such as under/over voltage and
frequency voltage. Modern PMUs should have some other features, like system
frequency measurement, measurement of power components, PQ related indicators like
local frequency and rate of change of frequency, harmonic, etc., and monitoring of the
status of substation apparatus (Novosel et al. 2007). Its popularity has been continually
growing, as evidenced by the world-wide deployment and installation activities.
A pure sinusoidal waveform may be represented by a unique complex number known as
a phasor. A phasor is defined as a vector representation of the magnitude and phase angle
of an AC voltage waveform (Phadke and Thorp 2010).
Consider a sinusoidal signal x(t)

(4.1)

where Xm is the signal magnitude, ω = 2πf, where f is instantaneous frequency

and φ is the initial phase of the signal, its synchrophasor representation is

(4.2)

(4.3)

(4.4)
where Xr and Xi are real and imaginary components of the complex phasor
representation, ( ) is the rms value of the signal and φ is its instantaneous phase angle

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relative to a cosine function at nominal system frequency synchronized to Coordinated
Universal Time (UTC).
The phase φ is defined to be 0◦ when the maximum of x(t) occurs at the UTC time
instant, and 90◦ when the negative zero crossing occurs at the UTC time instant as shown
in Figure 4.1. The phasor representation of a sinusoid is independent of its frequency. As
actual frequency is not exactly nominal the phasor recorded seems to be rotating with a
relative frequency given by the difference between actual frequency and nominal one
(Ree at al. 2010).

Fig. 4.1: Synchrophasor representation of a sinusoidal signal

The frequency and ROCOF is measured through PMU.

For given sinusoidal signal
X(t) = Xm cos (ψ t) (4.5)
The frequency and rate of change of frequency is obtained as per synchrophasor standard

(4.6)

and

= (4.7)

PMU transmits samples in different sizes. The PMUs transfer rate may differ and the
reporting rate defines the number of phasors transferred per second. The reporting rate of

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system frequency 50 Hz is 10, 25, 50 and 10, 12, 15, 20, 30 for 60 Hz system frequency.
Even higher sampling rates are certainly likely in the future leading to more accurate
phasor estimates since higher sampling rates do lead to improved estimation accuracy.
When encapsulating its data, the PMU employs the IEE C37.118 protocol. The final
PMU packets are transmitted into a wide area network before reaching their destination,
the PDC. When the packet has arrived at the PDC, it has been buffered, synchronized and
grouped into larger PDC packet consisting of data from multiple PMU packets.
To transmit data stream between PMUs, PDCs, and Super PDC, there are several
communication media such as power line carrier, satellite communication, microwave
network, fiber optics, etc. Every medium has its merits and demerits. For example, the
fiber optic communication networks permits to transmit large volumes of data from point
to point with high reliability and lower error rate. The choice of communication medium
depend upon the bandwidth, data transfer rate, and latency.
In order to achieve interoperability among PMUs made by different manufacturers, it is
essential that all PMU perform to a common standard. The IEEE C37.118.1 defines the
characteristics and requirements that a PMU must fulfill but this does not specify the
phasor estimation method to be implemented by a PMU. Also, this standard does not
specify the requirements for response of PMUs to power system transients.
A wide range of applications of PMUs are documented in the literature. In recent years,
many real-time and off-line application tools have been developed using phasor
measurement data. These applications are classified in two general groups depending on
whether they operate in real time or not.
Real-time applications are:
 State estimation;
 PQ monitoring;
 Real-time monitoring and control of the power system;
 Congestion management;
 Adaptive protection;
 Identification of sources of disturbing.
Off-line applications are:
 Post-event analysis and validation of system models.

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4.2.2 SIMULATION STUDY
In this work, single line to ground fault (SLGF) of three phase of power supply is
considered and simulated using MATLAB for detection and monitoring of voltage sag.
The block diagram of the model is shown in Figure 4.2. The signal generator is used to
generate the voltage sag. The voltage sag is simulated by varying the magnitude, duration
and phase angle jump. The magnitude may be reduced to a low value and it has been
reduced to 80% so as to have a unbalanced sag of 20%., appeared on phase ‘a’ of three
phase power supply.

Signal Generator Signal Processing Synchrophasor

Information

Fig. 4.2: Block diagram of the simulated model of PMU

Voltage sag of 80% is simulated in phase ‘a’ which starts at time 0.2 second and last up
to 0.7 second. The phase angle jump depends on the point on wave. The duration of the
sag is taken as 0.5 seconds.
Next is the processing block, wherein, the DFT (discrete Fourier transforms) is performed
on the generated signal. This yields the magnitude and phase angle of the voltage at
power frequency. The positive sequence component of the voltage (Vpositive) and phase
angle jump are thus measured.
The variation of positive sequence voltage component Vpositive, rate of change of
frequency (ROCOF), and phase angle jump w.r.t time is shown in Figure 4.3.
The phase angle jump of 4 degree during the fault is observed. The results obtained from
Figure 4.3 demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method of detecting the voltage
sag using phasor measurement unit.

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 1

Va
0
-1

1
Vb 0
-1

1
Vc

0
-1
1.5
Vpositive

1
0.5
Frequency

49.6
49.5

5
ROCOF

0
phase angle jump

-5
5
2.5
(degree)

0
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
time(seconds)

Fig. 4.3: Variation of phase voltage (Va,Vb,Vc), positive sequence voltage (Vpositive),
frequency, ROCOF, and phase angle jump with time

4.3 TRANSMISSION LINE FAULT LOCATION

Transmission lines play vital role in power system operation. A major section of power
system engineering deals in the transmission of electrical power from one particular place
(e.g. generating station) to another like substations or distribution units with maximum
efficiency. Electrical systems occasionally experience short circuits. When a fault occurs
on an electrical transmission line, it is very important to detect it and to find its location
in order to make necessary repairs and to restore power as soon as possible. Most of fault
locators are only based on local measurements. The time needed to determine the fault
point along the line affected the quality of the power delivery. Therefore, an accurate
fault location on the line is an important requirement for a permanent fault.
When faults occur in the power system, then there may be significant changes in system
quantities like over current, over or under power, power factor, impedance, frequency,

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and power or current direction. Various methods of fault location have been developed in
the past, some of which use data from one line terminal and some of which use
data from two or more line terminals. One common factor between all of the various
methods is the requirement of the line parameters and the line length to determine
the fault distance. However, the parameters of lines are not always available and they
vary with differing loading and weather conditions.
In this work, the simulation was carried out on standard IEEE 14 bus system using
DIgSILENT (software tool). All data obtained with single line to ground fault. Load flow
studies are performed for a healthy and faulty IEEE 14 bus system. The simulation
diagram for healthy IEEE bus system is shown in Figure 4.4.
For all cases fault is initiated at 2 second and clear at 2.1 second by opening the concerned
line. The fault are created at the center of line between L 1-2, L1-7, L2-6, L2-7, L3-6, L4-11,
L4-12, L4-13, L5-8, L6-7, L9-10, L10-11, L 12-13 and L 13-14. The simulation diagram for faulty IEEE
14 bus system with fault between transmission line 13 and 14 is shown in Figure 4.5.

Fig. 4.4: Simulation diagram for healthy IEEE 14 bus system

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 Fig. 4.5: Simulation diagram for fault in IEEE 14 bus system

The measured values of phase angle of bus, bus voltage, bus voltage (p.u) during normal
operation, and during fault between Line 13 and Line 14, are given in Tables 4.1 and 4.2
respectively.
Table 4.1: Measurement of phase angle, rated voltage, voltage (p.u)
under normal condition

Bus No Rated voltage (kv) voltage (p.u) Phase angle (degree)

1 67.65 1.02 +0.30
2 67.65 1.02 +0.00
3 67.65 1.02 -0.96
4 135.30 1.02 -6.56
5 135.30 1.02 -3.58
6 67.08 1.02 -6.32
7 66.07 1.00 -6.26
8 132.48 1.00 -6.03
9 131.91 1.00 -7.56
10 130.76 0.9 -10.05
11 131.75 1.00 -9.81
12 132.15 1.00 -7.69
13 131.83 1.00 -9.53
14 130.60 0.99 -10.52

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 Table 4.2: Measurement of phase angle, rated voltage, voltage (p.u) during fault
at Line 13-Line 14
Bus No Rated Voltage (kv) Voltage (p.u) Phase angle (degree)
1 54.75 0.83 +1.59
2 54.31 0.83 +0.91
3 53.35 0.81 -0.43
4 79.79 0.60 -5.14
5 98.09 0.74 -1.80
6 42.62 0.63 -2.34
7 39.00 0.59 -2.39
8 79.86 0.61 -2.32
9 70.85 0.54 -4.17
10 73.22 0.53 -3.30
11 74.78 0.57 -7.82
12 66.44 0.50 -0.60
13 36.36 0.28 -4.05
14 23.47 0.18 -5.49

It is recommended that the voltage sag source, a short circuit fault, is located at the bus
with the maximum voltage deviation. This criterion is adopted here to identify the faulty
transmission line in the wide-area power grid network. There is maximum voltage
deviation at bus 13 and bus 14. So, the fault is observed between line 13 and line 14. The
measurement of power during normal operation, and during fault between Line 13 and
Line 14, are given in Tables 4.3 and 4.4 respectively.
Table 4.3: Power flow during normal condition

Node No. Power flow between Lines Power (MW) Power (MW)
1 Line 1-2 +2.43 -2.43
2 Line 1-7 +51.76 -50.58
3 Line 2-6 +51.13 -49.97
4 Line 2-7 +49.44 -48.37
5 Line 3-6 +108.53 -105.87
6 Line 4-11 +71.29 -70.40
7 Line 4-12 +78.24 -76.55
8 Line 4-13 +36.55 -36.32
9 Line 5-8 +54.19 -53.67
10 Line 6-7 +17.38 -17.22
11 Line 9-10 +50.17 -49.53
12 Line 10-11 -20.27 +20.21
13 Line 12-13 +36.55 -36.32
14 Line 13-14 +21.19 -21.10

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 Table 4.4: Power flow during fault at Line13-14

Node No. Power flow between Lines Power (MW) Power (MW)
1 Line 1-2 +3.60 -3.60
2 Line 1-7 +30.90 -25.98
3 Line 2-6 +36.62 -32.18
4 Line 2-7 +28.09 -23.33
5 Line 3-6 +85.03 -73.14
6 Line 4-11 +23.14 -22.65
7 Line 4-12 +66.25 -45.10
8 Line 4-13 +40.90 -16.71
9 Line 5-8 +27.50 --23.23
10 Line 6-7 +8.87 -7.96
11 Line 9-10 +15.97 -1570
12 Line 10-11 -6.24 +6.54
13 Line 12-13 +34.99 -23.28
14 Line 13-14 +33.91 +14.12

From Table 4.4, it is observed that the power flows from higher level (+ ve) to lower
level (-ve) during normal condition. During the fault occurring on line between 13 and
14, the direction of power flow between line 13 and 14 is +33.91 at line 13 and +14.12 at
line 14 signifying a sink of power in between. By applying maximum deviation of
voltage and power flow direction, the fault location is easily obtained. Similar results are
observed by creating fault on other lines.

4.4 CONCLUDING REMARKS

The voltage angles throughout the power grid buses usually are not be measured directly
because of the geographical separation distance between the buses or nodes. However,
times stamped measurements are used to indirectly compute the angle. The main feature
of the PMU i.e. information of magnitude of the positive sequence component, phase
angle jump, have been exploited in this work which may lead to fast detection of voltage
sag. PMUs also measured local frequency and rate of change of frequency.
For location of transmission line fault, fault has been created using single line to ground
fault between lines on IEEE 14 bus system. For all cases fault has been initiated at 2
second and clear at 2.1 second by opening the concerned line. The fault has been created

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at the center of line between L 1-2, L1-7, L2-6, L2-7, L3-6, L4-11, L4-12, L4-13, L5-8, L6-7, L9-10,
L10-11, L12-13 and L13-14 but the results have been taken for faulty line L13-14. Due to SLGF
there is change in power line parameters like voltage, current, power flow, and phase
angle. By exploiting the changed line parameters such as voltage drop and power flow,
the location of a fault has been found out. The IEEE 14 bus system has been simulated
using standard software DIgSILENT. The advantage of this technique is the fast transfer
of data and detection of faulty transmission line.

In next chapter, secured smart grid communication infrastructure, its requirements are
discussed. Wide area monitoring system model is simulated using OPNET considering
Northern India power system, and then shared key cryptography is implemented to
enhance and strengthen of security of WAMS. Also the performance of WAMS system
will be analyzed using effect of cyber security on latency of phasor data using RSA
cryptography.

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