Factors Affecting the Single-Ended Travelling Wave-Based Fault Location in HV Lines

This paper aims to investigate, analyze and summarize the main issues involving the single-ended travelling wave-based fault location in High Voltage (HV) transmission lines. This method can potentially be cheaper and more accurate than double-ended fault-locating methods, as it requires only one terminal and is not affected by the potential time synchronization error between the terminals. Performed simulations highlight the need to know network topology at each end of the line in order to obtain a correct fault location evaluation. The paper shows also how the fault resistance can affect the second arrival wave measurement. Heavy attenuation of the transmitted wave passing through the fault point with low resistance can jeopardize the correct detection, especially in case of three-phase and phase to phase faults. Furthermore, the possibility, offered by this method, to locate series faults has been investigated.