This is a two year collaborative project with Scottish Power Energy Networks, the EIC and Elimpus. In the first year, the aim is to test, build and demonstrate a set of receivers that can recognise the signal produced by an arcing fault, and using the time of difference of arrivals at each receiver, triangulate the geographical location of the fault. Once the first set is built, the aim is to build several more, so that we an deploy them onto our respective networks, for our field staff to trial over the second year.

This method is innovative because the predominant method of locating faults is via fault passage indicators, which show a direction in which a fault came from; which may not have much efficacy in locating a fault in a highly branched network. This approach is innovative in sense that it gives the geographical location of the fault, removing the need to send out linesman teams for line patrols, and instead head straight to where the fault was detected.

Key learnings include:

• How large of an area a set of these devices can monitor
• How these units should be deployed