1 August 2019

Tavrida Electric introduces a new fault location algorithm and partners with VECO at Philippines

Tavrida Electric continues to successfully develop their activities in South-East Asia by completing the accreditation to supply reclosers to VECO – the second largest electric utility in the Philippines.

Within the framework of the visit of specialists from Tavrida Electric and PPI Pazifik Power to VECO, the last series of tests were conducted before putting the Rec15_Al series recloser in trial service. The most important aspect of the testing was to verify the functionality of the fault location algorithm (fault locator) designed for sensing and locating short-circuits and earth faults in radial and ring networks with solidly grounded, isolated and compensated neutral systems.

This universal algorithm for locating the fault distance was specifically designed by Tavrida Electric’s engineers using their own know-how. The new functionality is available for all customers as a complementary firmware upgrade. During the development, Tavrida Electric engineers were seeking to simplify user-level configuration settings, so that any customer could take advantage of the tool, having minimum data about his distribution network design. It is particularly significant that the fault locator is still efficient and shows satisfactory results in locating faults using factory defaults settings.

During the tests in VECO, the accuracy of the algorithm was verified in practice under all possible line faults: three-phase and two-phase short-circuits, single and double earth faults with different configurations of neutral. The results were verified by the ETAP software package – certified tool (in accordance with ANSI, IEC, GOST) used for detailed analysis of distribution networks. The test results showed that the measurement error of the fault locator was not more than ± 100 m from the actual fault distance. Notably, the test results were the most accurate among the companies passing the accreditation procedure. Tavrida Electric recloser has outperformed all other products in the aspect of accurate fault locating. In some cases, Tavrida Electric fault locator was 5-10 more accurate compared to other algorithms.

The most recent achievements in the development of new tools designed to provide reliable power supply (fault locator, REZIP, advanced admittance earth fault protection) prompt the conclusion that Tavrida Electric is one of the top manufacturers of switchgear products for distribution automation.