Patent ID: 6453248
Filing Date: 2002-09-17
Classification: G01R,H02H,Y04S

Abstract:
A method for detecting a high impedance fault (HIF) in an electrical distribution system including a substation providing power to a feeder and one or more laterals coupled to the feeder for providing power to customer sites coupled to the lateral(s), as well as a plurality of circuit breakers associated with the feeder, comprising:receiving one or more reports of an outage at one or more customer sites, wherein the outage(s) may have been caused by a HIF; receiving data from an analyzer located at the substation; using a computer and the outage report(s) and analyzer data to determine at least one circuit breaker to operate to clear the HIF; and tripping the circuit breaker; wherein the analyzer at the substation analyzes current and/or voltage waveforms to detect a HIF; and wherein the analyzer examines variation of the current waveforms over a short period and a long period.