Evaluation of travelling wave-based fault location methods applied to HVDC systems

Abstract This paper presents a thorough evaluation of travelling wave (TW)-based fault location (TWFL) methods when applied to High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) systems. All tests are carried out using a Cigre benchmark model which represents a Brazilian HVDC system. Simulations are carried out by means of the Alternative Transients Program (ATP), through which different pole-to-ground and pole-to-pole fault scenarios are analyzed. Four TWFL approaches are implemented and evaluated, and frequency independent and dependent line models are taken into account to investigate the impacts of line parameter uncertainties and transient attenuation on the analyzed techniques. From the obtained results, the accuracy and main sources of errors of each TWFL approach are discussed, pointing out practical application aspects important to the industry.