Due-to-Heatwaves Faults in Urban Distribution System: An Identification Approach

Abstract

Distribution system faults occurring during heatwaves (HWs) are not all caused by the HW itself: concurrent factors such as asset ageing, mechanical defects, soil contamination, and operational constraints contribute independently. Hence, indiscriminately attributing all HW-period faults to thermal stress overestimates system vulnerability and misleads asset-management decisions. This paper proposes a systematic framework to identify and quantify the subset of summer faults directly attributable to HW occurrences (denoted Due-to-HW faults), by distinguishing them from Due-to-Others faults. HW events are first characterised through the Excess Heat Factor index. A covariance-based attribution criterion is then developed to distinguish faults whose occurrence is statistically consistent with HW-driven thermal mechanisms from those attributable to independent causes. Complementing the attribution framework, a time-delay model is introduced to estimate the lag between the beginning of a HW and fault occurrence by maximising the normalised covariance between hourly temperature series and shifted fault-duration series. Applied to six years of operational data from a real MV distribution network, the simulation results show that Due-to-HW faults constitute a significant yet variable proportion of total summer faults, underscoring the non-negligible impact of HW occurrences on summer fault statistics. Beyond documenting the deterioration of fault rate and Mean Time Between Failures across all seasons, the analysis confirms that Time-Between-Failures distributions depart significantly from the exponential assumption, with direct implications for the applicability of Poisson-based reliability models to distribution systems subject to recurrent HW stress.