Novel Fault Location in MTDC Grids with Non-Homogeneous Transmission Lines Utilizing Distributed Current Sensing Technology

This paper presents a new method for locating faults in multi-terminal direct current (MTDC) networks incorporating hybrid transmission media (HTMs), including segments of underground cables (UGCs) and overhead lines (OHLs). The proposed travelling wave (TW) type method uses continuous wavelet transform (CWT) applied to a series of line current measurements obtained from a network of distributed optical sensors. The technical feasibility of optically-based DC current measurement is evaluated through laboratory experiments using Fiber-Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors and other commercially available equipment. Simulation-based analysis has been used to assess the proposed technique under a variety of fault types and locations within an MTDC network. The proposed fault location scheme has been found to successfully identify the faulted segment of the transmission media as well as accurately estimating the fault position within the faulted segment. Systematic evaluation of the method is presented considering a wide range of fault resistances, mother wavelets, scaling factors and noisy inputs. Additionally, the principle of the proposed fault location scheme has been practically validated by applying a series of laboratory test sets.