The composite high impedance detection system includes three individual high impedance fault detection systems and is shown in Figure 2. These individual high impedance fault detection systems have separate algorithms for discretely detecting high impedance faults. These algorithms are based on higher order statistics, wavelet and neural network. The individual high impedance fault detection algorithms can each have a different confidence level depending on the HIF characteristic. A fault is identified as a high impedance fault once it is detected independently by the algorithms and processed through the decision logic.