An On-Line Real-Time Monitoring Method for Locating Natural Triggered Events on Medium Voltage Power Grids

Time reversal (TR) has been recently adapted with success to locate faults in power grids, thanks to its location accuracy and robustness against parameters uncertainties. FasTR algorithm, a post-processing approach based on the tenets of TR, has shown promising results in locating disturbances along transmission line networks. This paper presents the outcome of tests performed on a 2.6 km energized three-phase 20 kV buried pilot network. The tests involve single-phase-to-ground fault occurrences manually triggered, and a 3-month real-time continuous monitoring while the network is in normal operation. The fault location task is performed by a system composed four components: distributed high-speed measurement devices, accurate time synchronization, a communication tool between sensors and the FasTR post-processing algorithm. The obtained results demonstrated the capacity of an on-the-shelf portable system to make an on-line accurate detection of transient faults in a complex network.