A Novel Transient Current-Based Differential Algorithm for Earth Fault Detection in Medium Voltage Distribution Networks

This paper presents a novel transient current differential algorithm for earth fault detection in unearthed (isolated) and compensated neutral medium voltage (MV) networks. The proposed algorithm uses the transient residual currents, which are very sensitive for earth faults detection. The transient values of residual currents are calculated for each feeder in the network and used as an earth fault indicator. The flow of residual currents is investigated. It is found that the residual current for the faulted feeder is equal to the summation of all residual currents for all other healthy feeders. Based on this investigation, a differential technique is proposed. A percentage restrain performance is proposed to ensure the selectivity and security of the algorithm. The transient algorithm is very sensitive for earth fault incidence. To apply the proposed algorithm, the residual currents can be measured easily by one sensor for each feeder with no need to voltage measurement. The proposed algorithm is less dependent on the fault resistance and the faulted feeder parameters. The network is simulated by ATP/EMTP program. Different fault conditions are covered in the simulation process: different fault inception angles, fault locations and fault resistances.