Faulty feeder selection method for high impedance grounding fault in resonant grounding system based on discrete Fréchet distance

When a high impedance fault (HIF) occurs in a resonant grounding system, the electrical signal is weak and the current distinction between the faulty feeder and non-faulty feeder is inconspicuous. To address this issue, this paper proposes a faulty feeder selection method based on discrete Fréchet distance (DFD). Firstly, the instantaneous value of the zero-sequence current flowing through each sampling point, along with the instantaneous values at its previous sampling moment, is accumulated to enhance the fault signal, and furthermore to magnify the distinction in the amplitude of the accumulated waveforms of zero-sequence current between the faulty feeder and non-faulty feeder. Then, the DFD of the accumulated waveforms of the zero-sequence current for each feeder is calculated, and the Fréchet distance matrix is established to acquire the average DFD (ADFD) value of the accumulated waveform for each feeder. Finally, the relative DFD (RDFD) value is defined as a criterion to distinguish the bus fault from the feeder fault according to the values of the two feeders with the maximum ADFD value and the minimum ADFD value. If the RDFD value is negative, it is identified as a bus fault, otherwise, the feeder corresponding to the maximum ADFD value is identified as a faulty feeder. MATLAB/Simulink simulation results and field measurement data show that the proposed method is not affected by various fault conditions, and the accuracy and reliability in faulty feeder selection are high when detecting an HIF, with good applicability.