Smart Wires Inc.

Niloofar Torabi

Haroon Inam

Hamed Khalilinia

Amrit Iyer

Michael T Garrison Stuber

Antonio Ginart

Shreesha Adiga Manoor

Govind Chavan

Mahsa Ghapandar Kashani

Adeel Ahmad Khan

Leonard J Kovalsky

Sana Tayyab

Ali Farahani

Zbigniew Wolanski

Guiping Zou

Leonard Kovalsky

A fault detection system has line current monitors. Each line current monitor couples to a line-phase of an electric power transmission system. Each line current monitor has a phase detector, a loop filter and a controlled oscillator, coupled as a phase locked loop. The phase detector has a rotating frame transform. The phase detector couples to a line-phase and provides in-phase and quadrature signals in a rotating frame, based on in-phase and quadrature signals proportional to current in the line-phase. One or more fault detection modules are coupled to the line current monitors through inter-phase communication of the in-phase and quadrature signals in a time frame rotating at the line frequency. The communication may have electrical isolation.

Method and apparatus for detecting faults using current unbalance

Disclosed is a reactance-injecting module and its method of use to balance the currents among the phases of polyphase electric power transmission lines or to manage power flow among alternate paths, where the reactance-injecting module has high-speed, dedicated communication links to enable the immediate removal or reduction of injected reactance from all phases of a phase balancing cluster when a fault is detected on any one of the multiple phases. The reactance-injecting module may communicate information on a detected fault to the other reactance-injecting modules of the phase balancing cluster within 10 microseconds after the fault is detected to allow the phase balancing cluster to eliminate injected reactance from all phases within a time that is short compared to a cycle of the alternating current, such as 1 millisecond after the fault is detected. This provides extremely fast neutralization of injected reactance to minimize interference with fault localization analyses.

Fast post-fault phase reactance balancing

An apparatus for injecting impedance into a high voltage (HV) transmission line is disclosed. The apparatus comprises a plurality of modular flexible alternating current transmission systems (FACTS) based impedance injection units (IIUs), each modular FACTS based IIU without fault current protection. The apparatus further comprises a fault current protection module external to the modular FACTS based IIUs. The fault current protection module is coupled to the modular FACTS based IIUs to provide fault current protection to the modular FACTS based IIUs.

Modular FACTS devices with external fault current protection within the same impedance injection module

The presence of injected DC has harmful consequences for a power grid system. A piecewise sinusoidal ripple voltage wave at the line-frequency that rides on the main capacitor bank of the power converter is observed. This observation leads to a new detection method and mitigation method. A two-stage control circuit is added to the operation of a power converter that controls power line impedance in order to mitigate the injected DC and to block DC circulation. This control computes a correction angle to adjust the timing of generated pulsed square waves to counter-balance the ripple. A functional solution and the results of experiments are presented. Furthermore, an extraction method and three elimination methods for this ripple component are presented to allow dissipation of DC energy through heat and/or electronic magnetic wave, or to allow transformation of this energy into usable power that is fed back into the power grid.

Detection and mitigation of DC injection on the power grid system

Transients occur on power transmission lines for unpredictable reasons including breakers opening and closing, load variations, and inputs to the grid from renewable energy sources turning on and off. A recursive technique allows a linear function to be fitted to a non-linear grid dynamic of the power line transients. The technique is adaptive and helps to stabilize an impedance injection unit while it injects correcting impedance into a transmission line for the purpose of achieving power flow control. When applied to many injection units the technique may also help to stabilize the overall grid. The stabilization system using the recursive technique provides real-time monitoring of the associated power line and stabilization with respect to power line transients.

Adaptive control technique for stability of impedance injection unit

The presence of injected DC has harmful consequences for a power grid system. A piecewise sinusoidal ripple voltage wave at the line-frequency that rides on the main capacitor bank of the power converter is observed. This observation leads to a new DC detection elimination method. Three DC elimination methods for this ripple component are disclosed to allow dissipation of DC energy through heat and/or electromagnetic wave, or to allow transformation of this energy into usable power that is fed back into the power grid.

Detection and elimination of DC injection on the power grid system

Disclosed is a reactance-injecting module used to balance the currents among the phases of polyphase electric power transmission lines or to manage power flow among alternate paths, where the reactance-injecting module has high-speed, dedicated communication links to enable the immediate removal of injected reactance from all phases of a phase balancing cluster when a fault is detected on any one of the multiple phases. The reactance-injecting module may communicate information on a detected fault to the other reactance-injecting modules of the phase balancing cluster within 10 microseconds after the fault is detected to allow the phase balancing cluster to eliminate injected reactance from all phases within 1 millisecond after the fault is detected. This provides extremely fast neutralization of injected reactance to minimize interference with fault localization analyses.

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Menlo Park, CA, United States of America

Niloofar Torabi