2016 IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference (EPEC)
Insu Kim
Electrical Engineering
Alabama A & M University
Normal, AL, 35711, USA insu.kim@aamu.edu
Abstract—In short-circuit studies, load makes difficult to determine fault current that flows in positive-, negative-, and zero-sequence networks. Therefore, it is often ignored because the magnitude of load current is much less than that of fault current that flows from generators when a fault occurs. As distributed generation (DG) resources such as photovoltaic systems, wind farms, and non-linear generators based on power electronics have being deployed into power system networks, load current that flows from them may affect a magnitude of fault current. Thus, the objective of this study is to develop a short-circuit algorithm that analyzes the effect of load current on fault current. For this purpose, using the bus impedance matrix and the iterative current compensation method presented in [1], this study initially develops a power-flow analysis algorithm that iterates to calculate current to be injected and determines voltage. Then, the proposed short-circuit algorithm uses as input data the results of powerflow calculation. To verify the algorithms developed in MATLAB, a distribution system with a DG resource is presented in a case study. Then, this study (a) calculates the power flow of the distribution system, (b) generates a single line-to-ground fault, and (c) changes the capacity of load, the capacity of a DG resource, and the location of a fault. Finally, it examines the effect of load and DG on a magnitude of fault current.
Index Terms—Power-flow algorithm, bus impedance matrix, short-circuit current, sequence network, fault, and load current.
Ronald G. Harley
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
Professor Emeritus at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in
South Africa, rharley@ece.gatech.edu
CYME software package (version of 7.2) only replaces the prefault voltages calculated by the power-flow module with the nominal voltage [11]. Therefore, to more accurately calculate the short-circuit current affected by loads, this study presents a novel method that (a) transforms an electric load to an equivalent impedance, (b) adds it to the bus impedance matrix, and (c) uses the prefault voltages changed by the power-flow results. In addition, previous work did not examine the effect of not only load with various capacities (i.e., from 0 PU to 0.9 PU) but also a DG resource with various capacities (i.e., from 0.1
PU to 0.5 PU) on short-circuit current. Thus, this study (a) presents a case study that generates a single line-to-ground
(SLG) fault while changing load capacities, DG capacities, and fault locations and (b) examines the effect of electric load and a DG resource on a magnitude of fault current.
This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the problem statement and Section 3 presents the short-circuit theory that analyzes load current. Section 4 introduces a distribution network as a case study. Section 5 calculates shortcircuit current of the distribution network using the proposed method. Section 6 summarizes major conclusions of this paper.
I.
I NTRODUCTION
Short-circuit studies, also known as fault analysis, are necessary for planning and upgrading power systems equipment. For example, a rating of equipment in power systems should withstand the maximum short-circuit current caused by electric faults. Therefore, many studies have presented various methods for short-circuit studies [2-10].
However, these studies ignored load current because not only its magnitude is significantly lower than the magnitude of fault current but also it makes difficult to calculate fault current that flows in positive-, negative-, and zero-sequence networks.
However, as high-capacity distributed generation (DG) resources have being deployed into power system networks, load current flowing from DG resources could affect fault current. Therefore, various commercial power system analysis software packages such as CYME provide the following two methods in their short-circuit analysis module: (a) ignoring the load currents and (b) including them. For this purpose, the
II.
P ROBLEM S TATEMENT
In short-circuit studies, the voltage of a bus that a fault occurs is often assumed as unity for simplicity. That is, a decrease or increase in the voltage of the bus caused by load before a fault occurs is often ignored. Therefore, to calculate more accurate fault current, a short-circuit study needs to take load into account. Furthermore, since single- or three-phase DG resources with various capacities have been deployed into power grid networks, the effect of current that flows from DG resources on fault current should not be ignored. Therefore, this study will develops a short-circuit algorithm able to analyze fault current affected by load and DG resources. For this purpose, a method that transforms an electric load to an equivalent impedance and adds it to the bus impedance matrix is presented.
III.
S HORT -C IRCUIT S TUDY
A.
Bus Impedance Matrix
A power grid network with n nodes in Fig. 1 can be shown
978-1-5090-1919-9/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE

2016 IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference (EPEC) by currents injected from n nodes and voltages induced at n nodes relating to the reference:
V  Z I , (1) where Z bus
is referred to as the bus impedance matrix.
Fig. 1. A power grid network with n nodes.
To build the bus impedance matrix, this study used the four well-known rules presented in [2, 12]. If the bus impedance matrix with a size of n × n is available, the matrix can be used for power-flow and short-circuit calculation.
B.
Short-Circuit Current
The bus impedance matrix is used to calculate short-circuit current. For example, if a SLG (single line-to-ground) fault occurs on the phase a of line i , fault currents of zero-, positive-
, and negative-sequence networks are calculated by
I
0
I I
2

V f
( , ) 
1
( , ) 
2
( , ) 3 Z f
, (2) where
I
0
, I
1
, and I
2
= the zero-, positive-, and negative-sequence currents of faulted bus or line i , respectively,
V f
= the voltage of the Thevenin equivalent voltage source in the positive-sequence network before a fault,
( , ) , Z i i , , and, ( , ) = the zero-, positive-, and negative-sequence (open-circuit driving-point) impedances of faulted bus or line i in bus impedance matrices ,respectively
Z f
= fault impedance.
Many short-circuit studies ignore current that flows to load for simplicity. That is, V f
is usually assumed as 1.0
∠ 0°, PU, because,of,ignoring,load,current.,However ,to calculate more accurate short-circuit current ,this,study,calculates, V f
using the power-flow method that uses the bus impedance matrix and iterative current compensation method presented in [1]. In fact,
V f
often decreases than when compared to neglecting load.
C.
Transformation of Load to Equivalent Impedance
If current flows from buses i to j through an inductive line
(e.g., when ignoring the capacitance of the line), the voltage at node j drops by as much as impedance of the line multiplied by current that flows from buses i to j . Since load current affects fault current, this study transforms load to impedance by
Z j
 V j
2
/ S *
,
, (3) where
Z j
= the equivalent impedance of load connected to bus j ,
V j
= the voltage at bus j , calculated from the power-flow algorithm that uses the bus impedance matrix and iterative current compensation method presented in [1].
Then, the impedance is added to the bus impedance matrix.
Therefore, this study can calculate more accurate short-circuit current because of not ignoring load current.
IV.
C ASE S TUDY
In Fig. 2, this study presents a distribution system with a DG source in order to verify the iterative bus impedance method able to calculate not only power flow in the normal steady state but also short-circuit current affected by load. The distribution system includes a substation with a delta-wye connected transformer with a capacity of 100 MVA at 115/12.47 kV, distribution lines, a wye-wye connected distribution transformer with a capacity of 100 kVA at 0.38 kV, a synchronous generator with a capacity of 100 kVA, and a load with 20 MW at 12.47 kV and a power factor of 1.0. This study assumes that the system is fully balanced and transposed in three phases. Therefore, this study performs per-phase analysis using only the positive-sequence impedances of the generators and transformers (because their zero- and negative-sequence voltages and currents are zero) and the single-phase impedances of the lines approximated by
Z a
 (2 Z
1
 Z
0
) / 3 , (4) where
Z a
= the approximate impedance of phase a [2, 13].
Then, this study initially calculates the power flow of the system and generates a SLG (single line-to-ground) fault on the high-voltage side of the distribution system, phase a of feeder
1, and on the low-voltage side, feeder 2. A fault impedance, Z f
, is assumed as 0.
Fig. 2. A distribution system with a synchronous generator at the end [14, 15].
V.
S IMULATION R ESULTS
Using the four rules in [2, 12], the proposed method builds a bus impedance matrix of the distribution system in Fig. 2 and calculates power flow until it achieves convergence. Then, it applies the voltage of a bus to which a load is connected to equation (3), calculates an equivalent impedance of the load, and updates the bus impedance matrix. To examine the effect of load on fault current, the proposed method decomposes the distribution system into zero-, positive-, and negative-sequence networks. For example, a load of 20 MW (or 0.2 PU at a power factor of 1.0 and a voltage of 0.98276
∠ -4.711° PU) can be converted to an impedance of 4.8291 + j 0 by equation (3). The voltage of 0.98276
∠ -4.711° PU is calculated by the algorithm presented in [1].
This study examines the effect of not only load with various capacities (i.e., from 0 PU to 0.9 PU) but also DG with various capacities (i.e., from 0.1 PU to 0.5 PU) on the magnitude of fault current when a SLG (single line-to-ground) fault occurs either before or after a bus to which the load is connected.
TABLE I and TABLE II show the fault current that flows from the faulted line to the ground if a SLG fault occurs on either feeders 1 or 2. First, in all the cases, the higher load current

2016 IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference (EPEC) flows, the lower fault current flows compared to the case that ignores load current (e.g., 0 PU). The higher load current flows, the higher voltage drops buses experience because the lines are usually inductive. In other words, the voltage in equation (2) decreases, so a magnitude of fault current decreases. Thus, load current should not be ignored because it affects magnitudes and phase angles of fault current. Second, as a DG source with higher capacity (e.g., 0.5 PU) is connected, the higher fault current flows. It is because both the substation and the DG source contribute to fault current at the same time, which is comparable to [14]. Last, a SLG fault close to the substation
(e.g., a fault on feeder 1) seems to cause higher fault current than that far from the substation (e.g., a fault on feeder 2). It is because the capacity of the DG source is lower than that of the substation. Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 show the trends in the magnitude of fault currents. It indicates that as the capacity of a load increases and the capacity of a DG source decreases, the magnitude of fault currents decreases.
TABLE I. F AULT C URRENTS OF F EEDER 1 (SLG F AULT ON F EEDER 1)
Load Load
DG 0 PU (No Load) 0.1 PU (10%) 0.5 PU (50%) 0.9 PU (90%)
0.1 PU 3.6030
∠ -84.52° 3.5989
∠ -84.61° 3.5793
∠ -84.98° 3.5509
∠ -85.36°
DG 0.3 PU 4.3805
∠ -84.62° 4.3751
∠ -84.91° 4.3416
∠ -86.08° 4.2836
∠ -87.30°
0.5 PU 4.9628
∠ -84.48° 4.9573
∠ -84.80° 4.9243
∠ -86.10° 4.8701
∠ -87.47°
TABLE II. F AULT C URRENTS OF F EEDER 2 (SLG F AULT ON F EEDER 2)
Load Load
DG 0 PU (No Load) 0.1 PU (10%) 0.5 PU (50%) 0.9 PU (90%)
DG
0.1 PU 1.6748
∠ -87.49° 1.6709
∠ -88.64° 1.6406
∠ -93.52° 1.5702
∠ -99.69°
0.3 PU 3.5978
∠ -86.42° 3.5956
∠ -87.07° 3.5730
∠ -89.80° 3.5205
∠ -92.91°
0.5 PU 5.0185
∠ -86.38° 5.0178
∠ -86.83° 5.0040
∠ -88.67° 4.9686
∠ -90.68°
Fig. 3. Fault currents when a fault occurs on feeder 1.
Fig. 4. Fault currents when a fault occurs on feeder 2.
VI.
C ONCLUSION
The objective of this study is to develop a short-circuit analysis algorithm able to examine the effect of load on fault current. To verify the proposed algorithm, a case study that generates a SLG (single line-to-ground) fault on a distribution system is presented. Then, this study examines the effect of load on fault current while changing load capacities, DG source capacities, and fault locations. The results from the case study show that the higher load current flows, the lower fault current flows compared to the case that ignores load current. It is because that the higher load current flows, the higher voltage drops buses experience. Therefore, load current should not be ignored because it affects magnitudes and phase angles of fault current. Next, as a DG source with higher capacity (e.g., 0.5
PU) is connected, the higher fault current flows because both the substation and the DG source contribute to fault current.
Last, a SLG fault close to the substation (e.g., a fault on feeder
1) seems to cause higher fault current than that far from the substation (e.g., a fault on feeder 2).
This study calculated the short-circuit current of only a simple single-phase distribution network, using the bus impedance matrix. It should be extended for three-phase distribution systems with sufficiently large feeders that may be not balanced. In addition, it did not examine various fault types
(e.g., double line-to-line, double line-to-ground, and threephase faults), various load types (e.g., constant impedance and current loads), and connections of three-phase transformers.
Implementing these topics in a future study should provide a more accurate and efficient algorithm for power-flow and shortcircuit studies.
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