The electric utility industry is moving toward a deregulated, competitive environment where utilities must have accurate information about system performance to minimize maintenance cost and meet customer expectations. Reliability of electric systems is gauged using several criteria adopted by the industry that, in general terms, measures the length and frequency of power outages.
Ground faults in underground cables are the most common cause of power outages in urban power distribution systems. Locating and isolating a ground fault, while restoring the healthy part of the network as quickly as possible, can significantly reduce outage costs and maintain the quality of supply and safety requirements. Therefore, automatic ground fault detection and localization represents a substantial part of the Smart Grid applications.