A robust fault location method for active distribution network based on self-adaptive switching function

Fault location is a key technology for active distribution network. Due to the injection of distributed generations and the flexible topology of active distribution network, traditional fault location method faces big challenges in accuracy and adaptability. This paper proposes a robust fault section location method for active distribution network. In the fault location model, to reduce calculation redundancy and improve adaptability to changed topology, a self-adaptive switching function is constructed based on the current path information of topology. The underreport and misreport of feeder terminal unit are taken into consideration by encoding the feeder terminal unit’s state. Hierarchical strategy and ant colony optimization are used for rapidly obtaining optimal solution. Different cases and conditions of fault are simulated. The location accuracy and the location time are compared. The proposed fault section location method is able to give accurate location results in around 5 s. The adaptability to topology changes is also verified. It proves the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.