A method and a device for disconnection of faults in an electric network comprising a plurality of stations connected in a loop, comprising feeding the loop from at least two feeding points from a power source, earthing a neutral point of the electric network through an impedance, detecting earth faults in a directional earth fault protection in at least one first secondary substation provided with directional earth fault protection, disconnecting a detected earth fault by a load switching device in said at least one first secondary substation provided with directional earth fault protection, detecting fault currents arising from short circuits between two or more phases in an over-current protection of a second secondary substation, and opening said loop with a circuit breaker of said second secondary substation.

The electric leakage detection method disclosed herein is first detection of turning at least one of the positive-side contactor or the negative-side contactor ON and detecting a value of a system electric leakage resistor R.sub.Z which is an electric leakage resistance of the entire electricity distribution system; second detection of turning both of the positive-side contactor and the negative-side contactor OFF and detecting a value of a power source-side electric leakage resistor R.sub.L which is an assembled battery 10-side electric leakage resistance; and first determination of determining which of the power source unit-side region or the electric device-side region is causing the electric leakage based on the values of the system electric leakage resistor R.sub.Z and power source-side electric leakage resistor R.sub.L.

A protective wiring device disposed in an electrical distribution system, the device comprising: a plurality of line terminals comprising a line-side phase terminal and a line-side neutral terminal; a plurality of load terminals comprising a load-side phase terminal and a load-side neutral terminal; a line conductor electrically coupling the line-side phase terminal to the load-side phase terminal; a neutral conductor electrically coupling the line-side neutral terminal to the load-side neutral terminal; a controller configured to transmit wirelessly data derived from signals present on at least one of the line conductor or the neutral conductor and to receive wirelessly receive at least one command.

Certain embodiments may generally relate to a smart fault detection device for power grids, and a method of fault detection for power grids. A method may include receiving raw data samples of currents in grounding conductors and line conductors. The method may also include processing the raw data samples under at least one of a plurality of system operating modes. The method may also include monitoring normal operation and anticipating an impending fault while operating under at least one of the system operating modes. The method may further include extracting fault information based on the monitoring. The method may also include reporting the fault information to a supervisory control and data acquisition system human-machine interface. The method may further include anticipating faults based on an analysis of the raw data samples.

Unique systems, methods, techniques and apparatuses of fault location in DC power distribution systems are disclosed. One exemplary embodiment is a DC power distribution system including a plurality of zones each including a DC power distribution line and a protective device. Each protective device structured to sense one or more electrical characteristics of a line and to controllably open a circuit including the line. At least one intelligent electronic device is structured to determine a line inductance based upon electrical characteristics sensed by one or more of the protective devices and to evaluate a location of the line fault based upon the determined line inductance.

Methods, systems, and computer program products for prioritizing errors in connectivity models of distribution networks are provided herein. A computer-implemented method includes collecting geo-spatial data arising from each of multiple transformers and multiple customer meters within an electric power distribution network; collecting load data arising from each of the customer meters within the electric power distribution network; assigning one of the transformers to each of the customer meters that is not presently assigned to one of the transformers according to a connectivity model for the distribution network, wherein said assigning is based on the collected multiple items of geo-spatial data and the collected load data; computing an error probability attributable to each of the transformers and the customer meters assigned thereto within the electric power distribution network based on multiple variables; and modifying an existing field inspection schedule corresponding to the electric power distribution network based on said computing.

A system and method for detecting and localizing excess voltage drop in single or multiple phases of three-phase AC circuits is disclosed. An electrical distribution circuit is provided that includes an input connectable to an AC source, an output connectable to terminals of an electrical machine, the output configured to provide three-phase voltages and currents to the electrical machine, and a diagnostic system configured to detect an excess voltage drop (EVD) in the electrical distribution circuit. The diagnostic system includes a processor that is programmed to receive measurements of the three-phase voltages and currents provided to the electrical machine, compute a negative sequence voltage from the three-phase voltages and currents, determine a localization reference phase angle for each phase based in part on the three-phase voltages and currents, and calculate an EVD in the electrical distribution circuit based on the negative sequence voltage and the localization reference phase angles.

Implementations of ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) self-test circuits may include: a current transformer coupled to a controller, a silicon controlled rectifier (SCR) test loop coupled to the controller, a ground fault test loop coupled to the controller, and a solenoid coupled to the controller. The SCR test loop may be configured to conduct an SCR self-test during a first half wave portion of a phase and the ground fault test loop may be configured to conduct a ground fault self-test during a second half wave portion of a phase. An SCR may be configured to activate the solenoid to deny power to a load upon one of the SCR self-test or the ground fault self-test being identified as failing.

Real-time detection of high-impedance faults in a distribution circuit is described. The real-time detection of high-impedance faults includes two steps. First, adaptive soft denoising is employed to perform a filtering process on a healthy dataset, and to determine a threshold. This reduces the rate of false alarms. Second, faulty datasets are prefiltered via adaptive soft denoising, then the denoised signals are processed via discrete wavelet transform to perform high-impedance fault detection using the threshold.

METHOD AND DEVICE TO IDENTIFY, RECORD AND STORE TRAVELING WAVE HEADS IN ELECTRIC POWER SYSTEMS consisting in sending a trigger (5) signal generated from the monitoring of the basic values of voltage and current of the electrical signal (1) of the transmission system in its fundamental frequency of operation (50/60 Hz), where the generated trigger (5) signal is controlled by continuous monitoring of the parameters derived from the basic values of current and voltage and tested against thresholds previously set by a user.