Real-time is something that most electric distribution cooperatives can’t seem to do. However, NRECA’s MultiSpeak standard allows companies to have all of their datasets talk to one another. MultiSpeak provides an interoperability standard that allows systems, like Aerinet’s PwrMetrix, to keep data secure while still allowing it to be accessed and interpreted for predictive analytics to run.
PwrMetrix provides an all encompassing data solution which begins by standardizing the data. The Aerinet Data Quality Management Program makes it easy for companies to take raw data from several different systems and ingest it into a usable format. Once the Data Quality Management(DQM) process is complete, the PwrMetrix platform can provide customizable dashboards and reports. These reports show where utilities may experience component failures. The software enables teams to see where revenue is being lost. Reports that would have previously taken a month to pull together from different systems, can now be delivered all from the PwrMetrix platform.
Electric distribution systems are identifying the warning signs of an imminent failure of an electrical distribution component by applying AI. These predictions save millions of dollars and equate to real benefits that eliminate future risk. Companies who have PwrMetrix merely need to add the additional AI component and have their system set up to run the algorithms. This type of feature empowers teams with real-time AI (Artificial Intelligence) and prescriptive analytics to optimize their reliability, resiliency, processes, campaigns, and service delivery to the highest degree.
We recently interviewed Chris Hamon, CEO of White River Valley Electric Cooperative which is based in Missouri. Chris provided an overview of how his team leverages AI to predict future component failures. Chris’s team uses MultiSpeak and PwrMetrix AI to predict top feeders that may experience power outages. Chris and his team overlay weather conditions to forecast future component failures. The White River Valley Electric Cooperative engineers can then proactively fix possible failures and use the system for future plans. This approach saves not only money but has reduced the amount of time dispatch crews are out in the field. The PwrMetrix data is used for proactive maintenance to limit future power outages. Mr. Hamon stated, “when we ran the outage predictions on the AI platform and it gave us the probabilities of outages for the next month, we were a little skeptical until in the first week after all top 5 predicted feeders went out. Literally it picked all five!!!”
The White River Valley team is extending the utilization of the AI report. Chris Hamon continued by stating that they are “looking at minimizing the outage length.” He continued with saying “by using the AI probabilities, we can stop the outage from happening at all by taking the AI to get future probabilities and use it to work smarter by changing breaker settings and minimizing the effect of the outage.” White River Valley engineers are taking lightning strike data to look for damaged lightning arrestors in areas where outages happened that had no probable cause.
Chris further explains, “once we get the fault current info, then we lay it over the digitized map and get the location of the nearest lightning arrestor to the lightning strike. We then send personnel to the site to check out the arrestor in question. We are 2 for 2 using this method and not letting time take the arrestor out on its own. We are using science and artificial intelligence to improve reliability and reduce losses of revenue during outages. Again, working smarter and not harder, and reducing incremental costs while reducing revenue losses.
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