Phase Current Measurement for Overhead Lines Using Contactless Sensors

On-site current measurement for overhead lines is of great significance to the power quality monitoring and equipment maintenance in distribution networks. However, there is still no easy-to-use method that has been widely used. In this paper, we propose a remote contactless method using a vertical magnetic-sensor array. Two algorithms based on the measured magnetic fields are also proposed. The simulation results show that two proposed algorithms, involving the use of only vertical magnetic-sensor array with the known overhead-line geometries, can achieve an accurate phase current measurement whose error is smaller than ± 3%.