A Simulated Annealing Approach for Distance Relaying under Arcing Fault Conditions

Abstract

Typically, arcing fault conditions have negative impacts on the reliability of regular distance relays. This paper conducts the development of a distance relaying scheme which is capable of protecting efficiently transmission lines that are subject to arcing faults. A simulated annealing-based distance relaying scheme is developed and successfully tested. The fault distance estimation problem is formulated, through discretization, as a set of simultaneous difference equations. Data windows of different sizes and locations, with respect to fault occurrence, are used to find the most suitable. The solution of the proposed simulated annealing method is compared with results of least square error method for two test systems. The obtained results prove the superiority of the simulated annealing-based distance relaying scheme. The obtained results prove the impact of fault induced transients in estimating accurately the fault distance.