Fault location in distribution systems by means of a statistical model

The enhancement of power distribution system reliability requires a great investment but not all the utilities are in a position to assume it. Therefore, any strategy that allows the improvement of reliability should be reflected directly in the decrease of the duration and frequency of interruptions. In this paper an alternative solution to the problems of continuity associated to fault location is presented. A methodology of statistical nature is proposed using mixture of distributions. With this approach a statistical model is obtained from the extraction of characteristic patterns of the signals registered by measurement equipments, along with the parameters and own topology of the network during an event. The purpose of this methodology is to offer an economic alternative of easy implementation for the development of strategies oriented to improve the reliability from the decrease in the times of attention and recovery of the system.