Basic goal of power system is to continuously provide electrical energy to the users. Like with any other system, failures in power system can occur. In those situations it is critical that correct remedial actions are applied as soon as possible after the accurate fault condition and location are detected. This thesis has been focusing on automated fault location procedure. Different fault location algorithms, classified according to the spatial placement of physical measurements on single ended, multiple ended and sparse system-wide, are investigated. As outcome of this review, methods are listed as function of different parameters that influence their accuracy. This comparison is than used for generating procedure for optimal fault location algorithm selection. According to available data, and position of the fault with respect to the data, proposed procedure decides between different algorithms and selects an optimal one. A new approach is developed by utilizing different data structures such as binary tree and serialization in order to efficiently implement algorithm decision engine. After accuracy of algorithms is strongly influenced by available input data, different data sources are recommended in proposed architecture such as the digital fault recorders, circuit breaker monitoring, SCADA, power system model and etc. Algorithm for determining faulted section is proposed based on the data from circuit breaker monitoring devices. This algorithm works in real time by recognizing to which sequence of events newly obtained recording belongs. Software prototype of the proposed automated fault location analysis is developed using Java programming language. Fault location analysis is automatically triggered by appearance of new event files in a specific folder. The tests were carried out using the real life transmission system as an example.

Basic goal of power system is to continuously provide electrical energy to the users. Like with any other system, failures in power system can occur. In those situations it is critical that correct remedial actions are applied as soon as possible after the accurate fault condition and location are detected. This thesis has been focusing on automated fault location procedure. Different fault location algorithms, classified according to the spatial placement of physical measurements on single ended, multiple ended and sparse system-wide, are investigated. As outcome of this review, methods are listed as function of different parameters that influence their accuracy. This comparison is than used for generating procedure for optimal fault location algorithm selection. According to available data, and position of the fault with respect to the data, proposed procedure decides between different algorithms and selects an optimal one. A new approach is developed by utilizing different data structures such as binary tree and serialization in order to efficiently implement algorithm decision engine. After accuracy of algorithms is strongly influenced by available input data, different data sources are recommended in proposed architecture such as the digital fault recorders, circuit breaker monitoring, SCADA, power system model and etc. Algorithm for determining faulted section is proposed based on the data from circuit breaker monitoring devices. This algorithm works in real time by recognizing to which sequence of events newly obtained recording belongs. Software prototype of the proposed automated fault location analysis is developed using Java programming language. Fault location analysis is automatically triggered by appearance of new event files in a specific folder. The tests were carried out using the real life transmission system as an example.

Asset management is getting increasingly important in nearly all fields, especially inthe electric power engineering. It is mainly due to the following two reasons. First isthe high investment cost include the design cost, construction cost, equipment costand the high maintenance cost. Another reason is that there is always a high penaltyfee for the system operator if an interruption happened in the system. Besides, due tothe deregulation of electricity market in these years, the electricity utilities are payingmore attentions to the investment and maintenance cost. And one of their main goalsis to maximize the maintenance performance. So the challenge for the systems is toprovide high-reliability power to the customs and meanwhile be cost-effective for thesuppliers. Reliability Centered Asset Management (RCAM) is one of the bestmethods to solve this problem.The basic RCAM method is introduced first in this thesis. The model includes themaintenance strategy definition, the maintenance cost calculation and an optimizationmodel. Based on the basic model some improvements are added and a new model isproposed. The improvements include the new improvement maintenance strategy,increasing failure rate and a new objective function. The new model is also able toprovide a time-based maintenance plan.The simulation is done to a Swedish distribution system-Birka system by GAMS. Theresults and a sensitivity analysis is presented. A maintenance strategy for 58components and in 120 months is finally found. The impact on the changing failurerate is also shown for the whole peroid. / Kapitalförvaltning har inom alla områdem blivit allt viktigare, speciellt inomelkraftsteknik. Det beror i huvudsak av två orsaker. Den första är storinvesteringskostnad, vilket inkluderar design, konstruktion, utrustning och underhåll.Den andra är den höga straffavgiften för system operatören vid elavbrott. Dessutom,på grund av den nyligen avreglerade elmarknaden, så fäster elföretagen meruppmärksamhet på investerings och underhållskostnader. En av deras huvudmål är attmaximera underhållsprestandan. Så utmaningen för operatörerna är att levereratillförlitlig elkraft till kunder, samtidigt vara kostnadseffektiva mot leveratörer.Reliability Centered Asset Management (RCAM) är bland de bästa metoderna för attlösa detta problem. En enklare RCAM metod är introducerad först i denna rapport.Modellen inkluderar en underhållsstrategi-definition, underhållskostnad-kalkyl och enIIoptimiserings modell. Grundad på denna enklare modell, andra förbättringar ärtillagda och en ny modell är föreslagen. Förbättringarna inrymmer en nyunderhållsstrategi, ökad felfrekvens och en ny målfunktion. Den nya modellentillhandahåller också en tidsbaserad underhållsplan.