Power grid outage and fault condition management

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9897665-B2
Application number	US-201414330969-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 14, 2014
Priority date	May 9, 2008
Publication date	Feb 20, 2018
Grant date	Feb 20, 2018

Abstract

An outage intelligence application receives event messages indicative of occurrences associated with various devices within a power grid. The outage intelligence application determines a state of the various devices based on the event messages. Based on the event messages, the outage intelligence application can determine and confirm an outage condition associate with a particular device. A fault intelligence application receives synchrophasor data for each phase in a multi-phase power grid. The synchrophasor includes phasor magnitude and phasor angle information for each phased. Based on the synchrophasor data, the fault intelligence application determines the presence of a fault involving one or more of the phases and identifies a particular fault type.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of determining a fault type in a multi-phase power grid, the method comprising:
receiving, by a grid device located in a portion of a grid network configured to distribute power from a substation, phase and magnitude data for each phase in the multi-phase power grid, wherein the phase and magnitude data is indicative of a fault on the multi-phase power grid;
comparing the phase and magnitude data for each phase in the multi-phase power grid to a first set of predetermined criteria, wherein the first set of predetermined criteria includes predetermined inter-phasor angle criteria and predetermined relative inter-phasor angle change criteria;
determining a fault type based on the comparison of the phase and magnitude data for each phase in the multi-phase power grid to the first set of predetermined criteria;
determining, based on the fault type and a location of the grid device, a fault location corresponding to the fault in the grid network;
communicating with a remote terminal unit configured to control power distribution over a feeder circuit from the substation, the feeder circuit configured to distribute power over the grid network to the fault location; and
reducing, by communication with the remote terminal unit and based on the fault type, the power distributed via the feeder circuit to the location in response to determination of the fault location.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein comparing the phase and magnitude data for each phase in the multi-phase power grid to the first set of predetermined criteria comprises comparing change in the phase and magnitude data for each phase to a set of predetermined relative inter-phasor angle change criteria.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein comparing the phase and magnitude data for each phase in the multi-phase power grid to the first set of predetermined criteria comprises comparing the phase and magnitude data for each phase in the multi-phase power grid to predetermined phasor magnitude data.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein comparing the phase and magnitude data for each phase in the multi-phase power grid to the first set of predetermined criteria comprises comparing change in each of the phase and magnitude data for each phase in the multi-phase power grid to predetermined relative phasor magnitude change data.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining a fault type comprises selecting the fault type from a group of fault types based on the comparison of the phase and magnitude data for each phase in the multi-phase power grid to the first set of predetermined criteria, in response to the fault type being determined over a predetermined number of sequentially received phase and magnitude data.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the selected fault type is communicated to a central server in response to the fault type being identified repeatedly over the predetermined number of sequentially received synchrophasor data.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the phase and magnitude data for each phase in the multi-phase power grid comprises receiving the phase and magnitude data at a plurality of time instants; wherein, comparing the phase and magnitude data for each phase in the multi-phase power grid comprises comparing the phase and magnitude data for each of the plurality to time instants; and wherein, selecting the fault type comprises selecting the fault type when the phase and magnitude data for each of the plurality of time instants is within the first predetermined criteria for a predetermined number of sequential time instants.

8. A device comprising:
circuitry configured to receive synchrophasor data from a grid device in a multi-phase power grid, the synchrophasor data comprising phasor magnitude and phasor angle of each phase in the multi-phase power grid;
circuitry configured to determine presence of a fault in the multi-phase power grid based on comparison of the received synchrophasor data to a predetermined set of threshold values;
circuitry configured to calculate inter-phasor angles for each phase in the multi-phase power grid using the received phasor angle data;
circuitry configured to identify a set of fault types of the fault in the multi-phase power grid, in response to the inter-phasor angles being in a predetermined range of inter-phasor angles;
circuitry configured to identify a fault type of the fault in the multi-phase power grid, in response to the phasor magnitudes being in a predetermined range of phasor magnitudes; and
circuitry configured to cause a change in power distribution in the multi-phase power grid in response to the fault type, wherein to cause the change in power distribution, the circuitry is further configured to:
determine a location of the fault in the grid network,
communicate with a remote terminal unit configured to control power distribution from the substation, and
reduce, based on the fault type and in response to communication with the remote terminal unit, the power distributed over a feeder circuit to the location.

9. The device of claim 8 , further comprising: circuitry configured to identify a subset of fault types from the set of fault types identified, in response to the change in the inter-phasor angles being in a predetermined range of inter-phasor angle changes.

10. The device of claim 9 , wherein the identified subset is a first subset of fault types, and the device further comprising: circuitry configured to identify a second subset of fault types from the first subset of fault types, in response to the change in the phasor magnitudes being in a predetermined range of phasor magnitude changes.

11. The device of claim 9 , further comprising circuitry configured to communicate the identified fault type to a central server.

12. The device of claim 11 , wherein the identified fault type is communicated in response to the fault type being identified repeatedly over a predetermined number of sequential readings of the synchrophasor data.

13. The device of claim 12 , wherein the set of fault types comprises low impedance fault, high impedance fault, open phase fault, bolted phase fault, and underbuilt fault.

14. The device of claim 13 , wherein each of the fault types has a corresponding unique identification code.

15. A power grid management system, comprising:
a device configured to monitor a multi-phase power grid for occurrence of an operational fault;
the device, in response to the operational fault, configured to receive synchrophasor data of each phase in the multi-phase power grid;
the device configured to classify the operational fault according to a predetermined set of operational fault types based on the synchrophasor data, wherein the classification comprises:
determination of a subset of operational fault types from the predetermined set of operational fault types based on phasor angle data in the synchrophasor data; and
determination of the operational fault type from the subset of the operational fault types based on phasor magnitude data in the synchrophasor data; and

the device further configured to determine, in response to the fault type, a location of the fault in the grid network;
the device further configured to communicate with a remote terminal unit configured to control power distribution from the substation, and
the device further configured to instruct the remote terminal unit to redirect power away from a feeder circuit configured to supply the power to the location.

16. The power grid management system of claim 15 , wherein the synchrophasor data is received at a predetermined frequency and

Assignees

• Accenture Global Services Ltd

Inventors

• Taft Jeffrey D

Classifications

• H02H3/042

  combined with means for locating the fault (locating faults in cables G01R31/08) · CPC title

• G01D4/002

  Remote reading of utility meters · CPC title

• H02H7/261

  involving signal transmission between at least two stations (transmission of signals in general H02H1/0061) · CPC title

• H04L43/0811

  by checking connectivity · CPC title

• H04L41/0681

  Configuration of triggering conditions · CPC title