An optimal radial basis function neural network for fault location in a distribution network with high penetration of DG units

Due to environmental concerns and growing cost of fossil fuel, high levels of distributed generation (DG) units have been installed in power distribution systems. However, with the installation of DG units in a distribution system, many problems may arise such as increase and decrease of short circuit levels, false tripping of protective devices and protection blinding. This paper presents an automated and accurate fault location method for identifying the exact faulty line in the test distribution network with high penetration level of DG units by using the Radial Basis Function Neural Network with Optimum Steepest Descent (RBFNN-OSD) learning algorithm. In the proposed method, to determine the fault location, two RBFNN-OSD have been developed for various fault types. The first RBFNN-OSD is used for predicting the fault distance from the source and all DG units while the second RBFNN is used for identifying the exact faulty line. Several case studies have been simulated to verify the accuracy of the proposed method. Furthermore, the results of RBFNN-OSD and RBFNN with conventional steepest descent algorithm are also compared. The results show that the proposed RBFNN-OSD can accurately determine the location of faults in a test given distribution system with several DG units. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.