Voltage: a Pragmatic

Solution for Fire Avoidance

and Fault Location
Vaibhav Donde, Dan Partridge
31 January 2017

Acknowledgment: Joel Ibarbia, Neelofar Anjum

 Large and Diverse Distribution Grid
PG&E is an investor-owned utility serving Northern & Central California
800 Substations
Primary voltages from 2.4 to 35 kV
3 wire and 4 wire neutral systems
142k miles of distribution lines

3,200 Feeders
1M Line Transformers
2M Nodes/Lines Modeled
5.5M Electric Customers

Rapidly changing grid that enables

active engagement of customers 2
 Distribution Grid Pilot Projects

PG&E is piloting various projects to improve grid reliability and efficiency

Fault detection and location leveraging data from sensors on feeders
Line Sensors and Voltage Sag Monitors
Fault event analytics using the data
Event prediction based on momentary disturbances and locating fire
hazards

Sensors and monitors Detection and Location of faults

+ Analytics and fire hazard areas 3
 Fault Detection and Location

Customer Calls for detecting and

locating faults
Traditionally useful but inefficient
Substation relay fault data can identify
fault locations
Multiple fault location estimates is an issue
Seemingly harmless momentaries
could become fire hazards 1.0
Va
Templeton 2113 - 7/26/2014 14:58:36.7370
Vb Vc Ia Ib Ic

Distributed sensors
0.5

Voltage (pu)
0

-0.5

Line sensors can bracket the fault

-1.0
3000

2000

1000

Current (A)
0

-1000

Voltage Sag Monitors measure fault arc -2000

-3000
0 50
2BC

100
I0

150
Time (ms)
200 250

Electrotek/EPRI PQView Trial

voltage and improve location estimates

Both help detect, analyze and locate
momentary and outage events
4
 Line Sensors
Detect a fault and record current
Cost-effective and easy to install
Lab tested to validate performance
Helps improve fault location results

Fault Locations

5
Line Sensors in PG&E Service Territory

Installed 514 line sensor triplets

on 120 feeders
Useful in fault location analytics
Wont work reliably far down the
line due to lack of current and
expensive installation if wire is
too small
Head-End Historian DMS
Systems

6
 Voltage Sag Monitors

Detect a voltage sag event and record waveform

More cost-effective than line sensors and easy to
install on distribution secondary
Lab tested to validate performance
Installed 116 monitors on 14 feeders
Proxy for future SmartMeter functionality

7
 Voltage Sag Event Data

VSMs measure the sagged

voltage % during fault
The voltage sag profile and line
sensor measured fault current help
pinpoint the fault

Voltage Sag
Sagged to 36%

The measured RMS voltage

during the fault event

8
 Voltage Sag Profile adds Value in Fault Location

V
4acbb4
If 49.3%
V
V S R 40 V 4ad646
20.6%
SS 9273 4ad647 9267 4676 4ad693
Hollister LS100146
91.9% 23.8%
2104
SCADA
@ SW 4115 R V

41808 4ad69b
SCADA 10.9%

R 30.5
R
4068 LS100128 4782
SCADA SCADA
@ SW 4223
Fault Location Using:
1. Substation current FL Alone V R
2. Sub FL plus Line Sensors
3. Sub FL, LS, plus Voltage Sag 4ad692 4470
99.7% SCADA

9
 Oakhurst
Oakhurst 1103 Momentary 11/26/2016 1103
23:30:10

Line sensor captured fault current

RMS is used to estimate fault location
629A Three possible locations past the LS

Oakhurst
10
1103
 Oakhurst
Voltage Sag1103
Data

Likely location
of the fault

4bcc0d
14%

4bcc1e
4bcc0e No trigger
67%

Oakhurst
11
1103
 Voltage Sag for Fault Impedance Correction

4bcc0d
14%

Fault location Voltage during fault is x% of pre-fault

after correction
VSM downstream of the fault
measure fault voltage (arcing)
Enables calculation of a
correction factor to account for
fault impedance
4bcc1e
4bcc0e No trigger
67%
Obtained from Sag Monitors
Oakhurst
12
1103
 Combined Events pinpoint Problem Area

A number of momentary events on Oakhurst 1103 feeder are

analyzed using line sensor captured fault currents and voltage sag
All events converge to a single area (red circle) as a possible
candidate problem area

Patrol 2cu mainline north from

recloser 10190 to fuse 19617
taps

Final Patrol area, approximately 2 miles of line. Initial area was 8

miles top to bottom with significant additional laterals
13
 Bay Meadows 2101 3/11/2016 13:39:57
Hundreds of momentary and outage
events analyzed in near real-time to
help dispatchers locate faults

VSM-1 VSM-4
11% voltage 73%
during fault VSM-2
11%

VSM-3
23%
VSM-5
65%

Calculations using line sensor fault

current and voltage sag data directs
to this as a fault location

substation
14
 Several Momentary Events pinpoint Problem Area

Analyzed historical smart meter

data for frequent voltage sags
Out of 4430 smart meters, flagged
2 clusters as potential high Area with known
concern areas vegetation issues
15
 Takeaways and Ongoing Activities
Line Sensors and Voltage Sag Monitors are installed on pilot feeders
514 LS triplets and 114 VSM, on 120 feeders
Fault current and voltage sag profile data is useful in post-mortem fault
location and predictive analysis
Hundreds of sustained fault events analyzed to help dispatchers
Proof-of-concept fault prediction performed with momentary events
Challenges in data handling, automation, IT and business processes

PG&E Applied Technology Services (ATS) provides a

sand-box to perform experiments and testing on new
technology
Micro-PMU data
High Impedance Fault detection

16
 Voltage: a Pragmatic Solution for Fire
Avoidance and Fault Location

Vaibhav Donde Dan Partridge

vaibhav.donde@pge.com dmpartridge@comcast.net

Acknowledgments:
PG&E Emerging Grid Technology
PG&E Applied Technology Services