Paper accepted for presentation at PPT 2001
2001 IEEE Porto Power Tech Conference
High-speed Fault Identification and Protection
for HVDC Line Using Wavelet Technique
L. Shang, G. Herold, Senior Member, IEEE, J. Jaeger, R. Krebs, A. Kumar
Abstract-This paper describes a new high-speed HVDC line
protection using wavelet technique, Based on the representation
of the tavelling waves through wavelet modulus maxima, the
protection criterions for HVDC line are proposed. Simulations
are carried out for testing the criterions. And the influences of
similar faults are discussed. The protection can detect the HVDC
line fault well and identify the HVDC line fault clearly from the
similar transients, such as commutation failure and AC single
phase fault.
Index Terms-Edge detection, HVDC Fault, HVDC line,
identification, protection, wavelet, wavelet modulus maxima.
I. INTRODUCTION
OR a safe operation of HVDC systems, ihe detection and
F fast clearance of faults in the HVDC lines are important.
The protection principle based on travelling wave theory gives
the possibility of fastest protection. Particularly HVDC lines
are mostly long distance transmission lines. They cannot be
sufficiently modeled with concentrated parameters as assumed
in traditional protection systems. Therefore, long HVDC lines
have to be taken as distributed elements in the principle and a
protection for long HVDC lines should be developed based on
travelling wave theory.
According to travelling wave theory, voltage and current
travelling waves appear through the line when fault occurs.
The fault generated travelling waves contain sufficient fault
information that can be used to construct high-speed fault
identification and line protection. The use of travelling wave
theory for fault detection was initially proposed in 1978 [l].
Since then a lot of work on it has been done. An overview of
travelling wave protection in AC power systems can be found
in [ 2 ] .
L. Shang is at the Institute of Electrical Power Systems in the University of
Erlangen, Cauerstr. 4, 91058 Erlangen, Germany (email: shang@eev.e-
technik.uni-erlangen.de).
G. Herold is at the Institute of Electrical Power Systems in University of
Erlangen, Cauerstr. 4, 91058 Erlangen, Germany (email: herold@eev.e-
technik.uni-erlangen.de).
J. Jaeger is at the Power Transmission and Distribution Group in Siemens
AG, P.O.Box 3220, 91050 Erlangen, Germany (email:
johann.jaeger@ptd.siemens.de)
R. Krebs is at the Power Transmission and Distribution Group in Siemens
AG, P.O.Box 3220, 91050 Erlangen, Germany (email:
rainer.krebs@ptd.siemens.de)
A. Kumar is at the Power Transmission and Distribution Group in Siemens
AG, P.O.Box 3220, 91050 Erlangen, Germany (email:
anil.kumar@ptd.siemens.de)
0-7803-7 139-9/01/$10.00 0200 1 IEEE
loth-13'h September, Porto, Portugal .
In AC power system, the amplitude of fault generated
traveling waves changes with the voltage angles. There is
always a problem for the travelling wave protection when
faults occur during voltage zerocrossing. However, for DC
power systems there is no such problems so that travelling
wave protection is preferably applied to HVDC systems.
By the travelling wave protection at the present, how to
detect a fault fast and reliable is still remaining big
challenging. Fault generated travelling waves are varied with
time and frequency. Pure frequency domain based methods are
not suitable for such transient signals. The pure time domain
based methods are very easy influenced by noise. Therefore,
the travelling wave protection still has the difficulty in practice
applications.
In HVDC systems, commutation failures in the converter
station and single phase short circuit faults at AC side are
similar to HVDC line faults. It is not easy to identify them by
using pure frequency domain based methods or pure time
domain based methods. However, it is an important
requirement on HVDC line protections that different fault
types should be identified and the correct decision should be
made as fast as possible.
Wavelet transform, a rather new signal analysis method, is
particularly suitable for analyzing transient signals. It has the
capability of time location as well as frequency location
simultaneously during signal analysis. Moreover, it can adjust
analysis windows automatically according to frequency,
namely, there are shorter windows for higher frequency and
vice visa. So it is naturally to use it for fault identification and
the travelling wave protection [3-51. However, wavelet based
fast identification and protection in HVDC systems is a rather
undeveloped area.
In this paper, the behaviors of different faults in HVDC
power systems will be analyzed through wavelet transform and
the protection criterions based on wavelet technique will be
proposed. The criterions will be tested through the simulations
under different conditions. The influences of similar faults
such as commutation failure and AC single phase fault will be
discussed. The simulations are carried out through
MATLAB@.The results will show that the wavelet technique
leads to a new way to the fault detection and protection in
HVDC system.
11. TRANSIENTS
IN HVDC SYSTEM
Figure 1 shows the voltages and currents of DC line at the
rectifier terminal when (a) DC line short circuit, (b) frequency automatically. Such multiresolution property is
commutation failure at the inverter station, (c) signal phase particularly suitable for analyzing transient signals. Another
short circuit on the AC side of inverter station, and (d) normal important reason that wavelet transform is attractive for
operation condition as a reference case. engineers is there are fast calculation algorithms based on filter
bank.
DC Current (kA) DC Voltage (kV) There are different algorithm structures for wavelet
4 500 transform. Considering a better time location and a better
information keeping, we use the atrous structure but without
2 0
down-sampling block after high-pass filters. Fig. 2 shows our
0 -500 filter bank where Hoand H, are low-pass filters and high-pass
0.45 0.5 055 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 filters respectively. The output of high-pass filters are the
time (s) time (s) wavelet transform of the original signal, called as wavelet
(a) DC line short circuit coefficients.

4 600
400
2
200
0 0
-200
0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7
time (s) time (s)
(b) Commutation failure at the inverter station

4 600
400 Fig. 2. Wavelet filter bank-atrous algorithm
2
200
0 0
-200
B. Wavelet Modulus Maxima
0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 The absolute local maximum values of wavelet coefficients
time (s) time (s)
are called wavelet modulus maxima. If the mother wavelet is
(c) AC signal phase short circuit at the inverter station
the first derivative of a smooth function, the edge of a signal
4 600 can be represented well by its wavelet modulus maxima [ 6 ] .
400 Under above condition, the wavelet modulus maxima occur at
2
200 an edge point, the polarity of the maxima shows the change
0 0 direction of the edge, and the amplitude represents the change
-200 intensity of the edge. It is proved that the wavelet modulus
0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7
maxima satisfy the following relation.
time (s) time (s)
(d) Normal operation condition

Fig. 1. Transients in HVDC system

Where, Wmmx(t)is the wavelet modulus maxima of signal
x(t), A is a constant, s is scale and a is Lipschitz exponent.
From Fig. 1 we can see that the different type of faults lead This relation means that the wavelet modulus maxima of an
to similar transient processes. It is difficult to identify the
edge (a = 0 or a > 0) keep unchanged or increase in value
faults and to make protection decision fast within 3-5ms by
while the wavelet modulus maxima caused by white noise (a <
using traditional methods. It is even more difficult if there is
0 ) decrease in value when scale increases. Additionally, the
noise.
number of wavelet modulus maxima caused by white noise
Wavelet transform give us a new possibility for the fast fault
decrease sharply when scale increase. This make an edge
detection and for the development of new protection criterions.
detector with strong denoising function possible [7]. Fig. 3
shows the effect of edge detection based on wavelet modulus
111. PROTECTION CRITERIONS BASED ON WAVELET TECHNIQUE
maxima when signal with 15% noise. It can be see that the
A . Wavelet Transform edge detector works well under heavy noisy condition.
Wavelet transform transfers a time varying signal into a
time-scale domain and thus can represent the original signal
with time as well as frequency information. Each scale in
wavelet transform corresponding to a certain frequency band
and the time window widths are changed with scale or
 Travelling wave with 15% noise RESULTS
IV. SIMULATION

A. Simulation Model
Fig. 4 shows the simulation model in which a 1000 MW
-?.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 (500 kV, 2kA) DC line is used to transmit power from a 500
Time (ms) kV, 5000 MVA, 60 Hz network to a 345 kV, 10 000 MVA, 50
Output of edge detector (wavelet modulus maxima) Hz network. The DC line is 300 km long and the speed of the
10, I
travelling wave is 2961 12 Ms. It is the standard model of 12-
pulse HVDC system under the MALLAF3' environment.
-101 I
2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Time (ms)

Fig. 3. Effect of edge detector based on wavelet modulus maxima (WMM)
C. Protection Criterions
Following a fault, travelling waves propagate along the line
and are reflected at discontinues point of surge impedance.
This leads to an abrupt change on the voltages and currents.
Such sudden changes in voltages and currents are just edges in
signal processing. Based on above wavelet theory, the sudden
change can be detected with the help of wavelet modulus
maxima.
The one terminal protection scheme is used in this paper so
that there is no requirement to the communication and
synchronized timer as in the case of two terminal protection
scheme. We use the reverse voltage travelling wave as the
input signal for the wavelet transform. The criterions for fault
detection and fault location are based on the corresponding
wavelet modulus maxima.
I ) Fault detection
Two criterions for fault detection are proposed in this paper.
The first criterion is that the amplitude of the first wavelet
modulus maxima, denoted as I w,,, u r I , should be larger
than the setting value K . ~ ~ r r i n p. The setting can be take as 100 detected. The time delay between the first two modulus
for 500 kV HVDC lines.
The second criterion is the polarity of the first wavelet detected and located correctly.
modulus maxima. It should be negative for the HVDC line
operating with positive voltage.
e
U I-
Rectifier Inverter
a
Fig. 4. Simulation model
The study cases are: (a) DC line short circuit fault, (b)
commutation failure, (c) AC signal phase short circuit at
inverter station. Each case is sampled at 80 kHz and 100
samples are taken for wavelet transform. Mallat wavelet is
used as mother wavelet. Reverse traveling waves are used as
the input signals of the edge detector.
B. Response to DC Line Fault
To investigate the discrimination of the proposed protection
criterion to DC line faults, the faults at different locations and
with different fault resistances are implemented in the
simulation.
Fig. 5 shows the response to a DC line fault: at 100 km from
terminal M and with zero fault resistance. The first modulus
maxima is 1091, larger than the setting (100) and the
corresponding polarity is negative so that DC line fault is
maxima with different polarities (here corresponding to the
first and the second modulus maxima) is 0.000675 s, thus the
fault is located 99.93 km away from terminal M. The fault is
Reverse voltage travelling wave
- 5001 1

Polarity = negative (3)

2) Fault Location
The Fault location is calculated according to the equation 4.
- I YYY
The key is the measurement of the timer delay At. Considering 0.5 0.5005 0.501 0.5015 0.502 0 5025
Time (s)
that the reflection from the fault point (reflection factor is Output of edge detector (Wavelet Mudulus maxia)
negative) is different with the reflection from the line terminal 2000, 1

(reflection factor is positive), we measure the time delay E O A A

between the first two modulus maxima with different 5
I/ V
polarities, namely the first is negative, the next positive one
should be taken.
L=-vxAt (4)
2
Where L is fault distance in km from the measuring point,
A t is the time delay in s and v is travelling wave speed in Fig 5. Response to DC line fault: lOOkm from terminal M
W S . WMM: wavelet modulus maxima
 Fig. 6 shows the response to another DC line fault: at 200
km from terminal M and with 60 ohm fault resistance. The
first modulus maxima is 723, larger than the setting (100) and
the corresponding polarity is negative so that the DC line fault
is detected. In this case, the reflected travelling wave fiom the
terminal N arrives at the terminal M earlier than the reflection
from fault location. With the help of the polarity, it is easy to
identify them. The time delay between the first two modulus
maxima with different polarities (here corresponding to the
first and the third modulus maxima) is 0.0013 s, thus the fault
is located 199.87 km away fiom terminal M. The fault is
D. Response to Commutation Failure
Fig. 8 shows the response to the commutation failure at the
inverter station. All modulus maxim are less than 10, much
smaller than the setting (100). The polarities of modulus
maxima are same after disturbance arriving at the terminal M.
It can be seen that the protection can detect the commutation
failure and tell the difference between DC line fault and
commutation failure.
Reverse voltage travelling wave
801
h

detected and located correctly.

500
Reverse voltage travelling wave
20'
0.5 0.5005 0.501 0.5015 0.502
I
0.5025
Time (s)
Output of edge detector (Wavelet Mudulus maxia)
P 1 I
-500
0.5 0.5005 0.501 0.5015 0.502 0.5025
Time (s)
Output of edge detector(Wavelet Mudulus maxia) -10 ' I

-
0.5 0.5005 0.501 0.5015 0.502 0.5025
z Time (s)
s o A
-10ogj5
V V

I Fig 8. Response to commutation failureat the inverter station

0.5005 0.501 0.5015 0.$2 0.5025 WMM: wavelet modulus maxima
Time (s)
i f
-123 +59 1
E. Response to AC Single Phase Fault
At = 0.0013s e L,, = 199.87km Fig. 9 shows the response to the AC single phase fault at the
inverter station. Similar as the commutation failure, all
Fig 6. Response to DC line fault: 2 0 0 h from terminal M modulus maxima in AC fault are less than 10, much smaller
WMM: wavelet modulus maxima
than the setting (100). The polarities of modulus maxima are
same after the disturbance arriving at the terminal M, so that
It can be seen that the proposed criterions lead to a clear the protection can also detect the AC fault and tell the
identification and decision for DC line fault.

5rz%
difference between AC fault and DC line fault.
C. Response to Normal Operation Condition Reverse voltage travelling wave
Fig. 7 shows the response to the normal operation condition
at the terminal M. All modulus maxim are less than 10, much
smaller the setting (100). The polarities of modulus maxima
are positive and negative in turns.
3 -500.5 0.5005 0.501 0.5015 0.502 0.5025

Time (s)
Reverse voltage travelling wave

i3 E O _ - I
$ i
60

40
IO,
Output of edge detector (Wavelet Mudulus maxia)
I

-101
200.5 0.5005 0.501 0.5015 0.502 0.5025 0.5 0.5005 0.501 0.5015 0.502 0.5025
Time (s) Time (s)
Output of edge detector (Wavelet Mudulus maxia)
:4AC single phase fault

Fig 9. Response to AC single phase fault

WMM: wavelet modulus maxima
-101 I
0.5 0.5005 0.bOl 0.5015 0.502 0.5025
j Time(s)
V. CONCLUSION
Commutation failure
For high-speed HVDC line protection based on travelling
Fig 7. Response to normal operation condition wave, the methods regarding transient signal analysis are
WMM: wavelet modulus maxima necessary; the edge detection and identification fiom the
similar transients are decisive. The wavelet transform Systems Group. Since 1993 he is Professor and Director of the Institute of
Electrical Power Systems at the Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-
technique provides new possibility for this. The proposed Nuernberg. He is a senior member of the IEEE.
protection criterions based on wavelet modulus maxima can
make a definite HVDC line fault detection and the
identification fiom the similar faults such as commutation
failure and AC single phase fault. The simulation results has
shown that the application of wavelet technique leads to a
faster, easier and more reliable solution for the fault detection
and protection of HVDC lines.
VI. REFERENCES
H. W. Dommel and J. M. Michels, High speed relaying using travelling
[l]
wave transient analysis, in 1978 IEEE PES Winter Power Meeting,
78CH1295-5 PWR, 1-7.
[2] A. T. Johns, and S. K. Salman, Digital protection f o r power systems,
IEE Power Series 15, Peter Peregrinus Ltd.E., 1995.
[31 L. Shang, G. Herold, and J. Jaeger, A new approach to high-speed
protection for transmission line based on transient signal analysis using
wavelets, in Proc. 7th International Conference on Developments in
Power System Protecfion,pp. 173-176, April 2001, Amsterdam.
[41 F.H. Magnago, and A. Abur, Fault location using wavelets, IEEE
Trans. on Power Deliveiy, vol. 13. pp. 1475-1480, Apr. 1998.
t51 X. Zh. Dong, Y Zh. Ge, and B. Y. Xu,, Fault position relay based on
current travelling waves and wavelets, in IEEE PES 2000 Winter
Meeting, pp. 23-27, Jan. 2000, Singapore.
S. Mallat, A Wavelet Tour of Signal Processing, Academic Press, 1998,
pp. 165-198.
L. Shang, G. Herold, and J. Jaeger, A new approach to high-speed
protection for transmission line using wavelet technique, in Proc. 12h
International Con$ PSP 2000, pp. 85-90, Sept. 2000, Bled.
VII. BIOGRAPHIES
Shang, Li was born in Shandong Province,
China, on October IO, 1961. She received her
Bachelor degree in 1982, Master degree in 1991
from the Department of Electrical Engineering
in China Agriculture University, Beijing,
China. She worked as a lecturer during 1982-
1993 and is an associate professor since 1994
in China Agriculture University where her main
research fields are the analysis and automation
of MV and LV distribution power system. Since
1998, she is working at her doctor dissertation
in the Institute of Electrical Power Systems in
the University of Erlangeu, Germany. Now her
research area is the applicittions of wavelet transform in analysis of power
transients, protection and pc)wer quality.
Gerhard Herold was born in Beesedau,
Germany, on July 20, 1947. He received his
Dipl.-Ing. degree in 1971 from the Technische
Hochschule Ilmenau, Department of Electrical
Power Apparatus and Systems. From 1971 to
1984 he joined TH Ilmenau as a scientific
assistant, where he received his Dr.-Ing degree
in 1976 and his Dr.sc.techn. degree in 1982.
From 1986 to 1990 he was supervisor of the
department on CAD-technique and power
system planning in the Starkstrom-Anlagenbau
GmbH Leipzig-Halle. In 1991 he joined the
Siemens AG as a head of a department on
Engineering and Softwaredelrelopment in the Siemens Industrial and Building
.-- - Johann Jager was born in Erlangen, Germany,
-:
on January 19, 1964. He studied Electrical
Engineering at the Friedrich-Alexander
University Erlangen-Nurnberg. He received his
Dip1.-Ing. degree in 1990. He joined the
Institute for Electric Power Systems in 1991
and received his Dr.-Ing. degree in 1996.
Since 1996 he works in the Siemens AG in
Erlangen, Power Transmission and Distribution
Group - System Planning Department. Now he
works at protection design and protection
coordination in power systems as a senior
consultant.
He is member of VDE and its associated section ETG..
Rainer Krebs was born in Pfedelbach,
Germany on January 19, 1958. He received his
Dip1.-Ing. degree in Electrical Engineering and
Power Systems in 1982 and the Dr.-Ing. degree
in 1990 from the Friedrich-Alexander
Universityjn Erlangen.
He joined the Institut Gr Elektrische
Energieversorgung at the same University in
1983, working on calculation and
measurement of power-system disturbances
and unbalances, using space-phasor theory. In
1990 he joined the Siemens AG in Erlangen as
a member of the System Planning Department.
He started his work in the fields of power-system planning, power-system
relaying, system and protection real-time simulation and fault analysis. Since
1998 he is director of the department Protection Systems and PC-Tools.
He is member of VDE and its associated section ETG.
Ani1 Kumar (M64) received his B. Tech, ME
and Ph. D from the Indian Institute of Science
Bangalore in 1962, 1964 and 1969
respectively. From 1970 to 1972, he was a post
doctoral fellow of the Alexander von
Humboldt Foundaton at the technical
university of Braunschweig, Germany. From
1973 to 1995 he was with the Protection
Department of Siemens, Germany. Since 1995
he has been with the high voltage department
as a senior project manager for HV AC and
DC innovations. He has been involved in the
- .,.
desim and develoDment of dieital orotection
systems from the beginning. In his 26 years service with Siemens, he has also
carried out design and sales work for EHV line protection and customer
oriented design tests of protection schemes on the AC/DC Simulator.
From 1980 to 1990; Dr. Kumar was a member of the CIGRE Working
Groups 34.01 and 34.02 dealing with digital protection and control of power
systems. He is a member of the IEEE and PES.