TravellingWave Fault Location System based on IEC61850

Travelling wave fault location (TWFL) system has been matured in recent years due primarily to the availability of high speed sampling techniques, fast communications technology and GPS time synchronization. However, it has not yet been fully integrated into the digital substation based on IEC61850 standard. Proposal for modeling the TWFL system by the IEC61850 standard has already been proposed in another paper. This paper focuses on the communication requirements of the TWFL system in a digital substation, both at the station level and the process level. The application of GOOSE messages and the need for high speed sampling merging unit are discussed. The paper also reports on the latest research into the electronic transformer technology which can satisfy the high speed sampling requirements of TWFL.