AbstractPower disturbances, defined as the waveform distortion of a power system under normal or abnormal conditions, contain considerable system and equipment state information. Obtaining equipment and system state information from power disturbance is very important to ensure the safety of power grids. To adapt to the development of power electronics, informatisation and digitisation of power systems, several applications with waveform‐recording devices have obtained large amounts of disturbance waveform data, laying an important foundation for the analysis and application of power disturbance waveform data. First, typical disturbance waveform monitoring devices and a disturbance trigger detection algorithm are introduced. Then, disturbances are classified as switching, fault, or abnormal operations, according to the cause. The characteristics of various typical disturbance waveform data were analysed by combining the simulation and measured data. This paper summarises the application analysis of power disturbance waveform data at both the system and equipment levels. Finally, the construction scheme of a power disturbance waveform data monitoring and analysis platform for two different application scenarios was proposed for commutation failure monitoring and medium‐voltage distribution network fault warning. The research conducted here is expected to support the construction of a power disturbance waveform analysis platform.