The smart distribution grid self-healing needs a large number of wide-area distributed control systems while formal verification technology can play an important role in the control logic and protocol verification of these systems. The principle of formal verification technology is described， based on which the role of formal verification technology in achieving early warning of failure， fault diagnosis and the verification of the core algorithm or protocol in the self-healing of the distribution network is analyzed. With the validation of the intelligent distributed feeder automation as an example， the use of formal verification technology to verify the core algorithm is discussed in detail.