Distributed, Active Grid-Interrogation and Signal Analysis for Advanced Protective Relaying

Faults on the electric power grid can ignite wildfires that result in 1) catastrophic damage to property and the environment; 2) death, injury and long-term pollution that damages public health, and 3) extended disruption of energy delivery. To reduce such dangers, the Department of Energy is fostering innovations that will advance the state-of-the-art in protection relaying. In response, Elintrix is developing a system that will actively interrogate the grid. This innovation would enable: 1) dynamically adjusting relay trip points to optimal settings, based on real-time assessments of grid conditions and events; 2) distinguishing between momentary and sustained faults; 3) reduction of misoperation, such as failure of a protective relay to identify and turn off power to a fault, and 4) detection of hidden faults, such as can occur in grid components, through damage or deterioration. Traditional fault detection systems operate passively, relying on direct or indirect measurement of signals arising from the power line signal. Envisioned advancements in protection relaying will rely on fault detection achieved by an edge network of electronic Remote Analytics Devices (RADs) that are deployed in the service area to transmit, receive, and analyze special, interrogation signals, electrically probing the grid to find and localize fault conditions. In Phase I of the project, prototype, RAD hardware was constructed. On-grid experiments were conducted, confirming desired transmission/reception performance, and providing insight into grid influences on the interrogation signals. In Phase II, knowledge obtained in Phase I will be used to develop enhanced RADs, deploy them on a power grid, and develop databases of received, interrogation signals. The databases will be mined, to improve the interrogation signals and enable the development of algorithms for detecting, localizing, and classifying hard-to-detect faults and degraded grid components. Such information would make protective relaying systems responsive to faults that would otherwise go undetected. If carried over into future phases, the resulting technology would significantly improve the ability of existing and new protection relaying systems to detect and terminate dangerous types of faults that would escape detection by conventional, protective-relaying equipment, reducing the risk of wildfire ignition. The technology could be gracefully extended to provide other monitoring capabilities, enabling safer and more efficient operation of the grid.