Fault Current Active Management (FCAM)

Reference:

Status: Live

Start Date: Sep 2013

End Date: Mar 2015

Funding Licencee(s): Electricity North West Limited

Contact: Electricity North West Innovation Team

Funding Mechanism LCN Fund Tier 1

Research Area: None

Core Technology(ies): Comms & IT

Estimated Expenditure: £854,000.00

Introduction: Generators will provide an additional in-feed to the network under fault conditions which leads to much larger fault currents than previously seen. This results in more areas of the network running close or or possibly beyond the designed fault current levels. Our RIIO-ED1 submission shows an increased spend in network reinforcement to alleviate fault level issues. This project is to consider alternatives to traditional methods.

Objectives: Electricity North West Limited propose to investigate new techniques including innovative use of existing protection to control fault level. Electricity North West Limited propose to carry out an independent Risk Assessment into the different currently available methods of fault current management.

Through modelling and measurement Electricity North West Limited aim to compile a picture of how the fault currents vary both across the network and over time.

The following objectives have been defined:

To install fault currents monitors across the entire Electricity North West Limited network to help validate models through measurement
To produce a Risk Assessment for traditional techniques for fault current management
To develop new techniques to control fault current level using existing assets
To simulate installations to prove the concepts.