Fault Location Calculation Challenge: Use of Automated and Manual Tools

More and more intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) are being installed and utilized in power system substations. Majority of these new devices come with event recording feature and some even provide fault location calculation. In case of power system faults, protection and fault analysis engineers are often presented with event recording coming from various substations and also from multiple devices. There are several challenges in processing these files efficiently in order to perform analysis and make decision based on the event data. This paper focuses on the fault location calculation based on event recordings from IEDs such as digital fault recorders or protective relays. The paper addresses requirements and obstacles when the event data is to be processed automatically in order to enable automated fault location calculation. On the other side, the paper shows examples where combining automated and manual data analytics tools create additional benefits through the use of new fault location calculation tool. Index terms – data analytics, substation automation, fault location, fault analysis, power system restoration.