A Fault Location Method for HVDC Transmission Lines

A fault location method for HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) transmission lines is proposed in this paper, using voltages and currents measured at two terminals of dc lines in time domain. Fault traveling waves propagate from the fault point to both terminals along the faulted line. The position that the traveling wave head arrives at some moment after the fault can be used to calculate the fault location. To determine the arrival positions of traveling wave head at each time indirectly, propagation characteristic curves of traveling wave heads at local and the remote terminals are calculated with distribution currents using the stationary wavelet transform. The accuracy of fault location will not be affected by transition resistance and fault position. Simulation results show that the presented fault location method can achieve quick and accurate fault location on the whole line under probable operation modes of a bipolar HVDC transmission system.