An expert system dispatcher's aid for distribution feeder fault diagnosis

A description is given of an expert system designed to serve as a dispatcher's aid for locating sources of outages on electric power distribution feeders. Normally, a dispatcher is responsible for evaluating information received from both customers and SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) sources. The goal of using an expert-system approach is to speed up the search for the cause of the disturbance by applying a heuristic strategy based on past operating experience, the probability associated with a possible event and the configuration of the feeder. Potential contingencies are identified through the use of a hybrid strategy that has both heuristic and algorithmic components. The authors provide an introduction to the distribution fault identification problem, a discussion on the heuristic aspects of this problem, and a description of how such a system can be implemented. Examples are included to illustrate the viability of this approach.<>