On Determining the Relative Location of Switched Capacitor Banks

This paper presents a method to determine the relative location of a switched capacitor bank using voltage and current waveforms recorded at a single measurement point. The hypothesis states that a switched capacitor bank downline from the monitoring location will have opposite polarity in grad[Vepsiv(t)] and grad[Iepsiv(t)], while a switched capacitor bank upline from the monitoring location will have an identical polarity in grad[Vepsiv(t)] and grad[Iepsiv(t)], where grad[middot] is the gradient or slope of voltage and current traces immediately after the switching instant. The method is valid for both wye-and delta-configured capacitor banks. This paper proves the hypothesis using principles of electric-circuit theory, and demonstrates its efficacy using simulated and actual capacitor energizing events