UC Santa Cruz

The move to modernize power distribution, including the deployment of smart meters in the field, opens new possibilities for monitoring and control with the historically volatile distribution system. Given measurements from smart meters and other intelligent devices, location and characterization of the three basic fault types (line-to-ground, multi-line-to-ground, and line-to-line) is possible using voltage sag characteristics. In addition, distributed measurement locations result in greater fidelity in transient analysis, given waveforms captured closer to their source.