Browsing by Author "Wattel, Jacques Willem"
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- ItemEnabling low voltage grid visibility to detect safety hazards(2018-03) Wattel, Jacques Willem; Beukes, Johan; Mouton, H. du T.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The low voltage (LV) network poses various hazards to humans and animals. In rural and deep rural areas the risk of electrocution and fire hazard is augmented, largely due to overhead conductors being used and illegal connections, with fatalities occurring each year on South Africa’s rural networks. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the possibility of detecting such hazards by employing smart meters and smart grid infrastructure. Four main hazard categories were identified as having the highest likelihood to the loss of life on Eskom’s rural LV distribution network. The hazards include: 1. PEN conductor failure. 2. LV earth electrode conductor high impedance failure. 3. Unaccounted current flow. 4. Earth leakage protection not operational. A model of each hazard is discussed and a possible detection method is proposed. An experimental setup of an LV feeder was built to verify the feasibility of the proposed detection methods. Experimental smart meters from Texas Instruments with ZigBee capabilities were installed at each customer installation and at the MV/LV transformer. The meters send measurement data to a data concentrator. The data concentrator was used to capture, store, manage and visualize data gathered from the smart meters. The thesis covers the hardware and software development that was done on the smart meters and data concentrator. Hazards were imposed on the experimental network to simulate each hazardous condition and the associated detection methods were evaluated. Lastly, the concept to monitor the feeder loop impedance using smart meters is introduced which provides an additional hazard detection parameter, providing an indication of the overall ‘health’ of a feeder. Experimental results showed that the feeder loop could successfully be measured using smart meters.