A selective single-phase-to-ground fault protection for neutral un-effectively grounded systems

Single-phase-to-ground faults are the most frequent faults likely to occur in power distribution networks. As for a neutral un-effectively grounded system (NUGS), the low fault current is very common in the case of occurrence of a single-phase earth fault, leading to hard identification of the faulty feeder. In conventional way, this target can be possibly achieved by the comparison of the polarities, magnitudes, or the phase angles of the zero-sequence currents of all feeders connected to the same busbar. However, it becomes a difficult task to implement this functionality into the protection of feeder. In this paper, a novel single-phase-to-ground fault protection for NUGS is put forward. Different from conventional centralized-comparison protection, this protection can detect single-phase-to-ground fault on the feeder individually, and can be realized on FTU (Feeder Terminal Unit). It is based on the measurement of the zero-sequence voltage and zero-sequence current. The tripping strategy follows the characteristic of the modified inverse-time delay curve. By means of analyzing the characteristics of the zero-sequence transient currents, it is disclosed that the magnitude of the zero-sequence current of the faulty feeder should be greater than that of any sound feeder. Then a composite compensated voltage is formed based on the zero-sequence voltage and zero-sequence current to evaluate a revising factor for every feeder respectively. Using this revising factor to modify the identical standard inverse-time delay curve adopted by all the feeder zero-sequence overvoltage protections, the tripping time of the zero-sequence overvoltage protections of all feeders will differ from each other. In this case, the selectivity of the protection can be guaranteed. This proposed algorithm is validated with the EMTP simulation tests.