New Technology Improves Grid Reliability

Imagine being able to diagnose an illness even before symptoms appear. While humans haven’t mastered that skill, Southern California Edison’s new Advanced Waveform Anomaly Recognition System (AWARE) can do just that with the electric grid.

“Just like an EKG shows waveforms depicting the health of the human body, this technology captures similar waveforms dictating the health of the electric grid,” said Vik Trehan, SCE director of Grid Operations. “Devices called distribution digital fault recorders are installed at substations which basically record the pulse of the grid, or its blood pressure, so to speak.”

Trehan and his team began the ideation for AWARE nearly two years ago during a brainstorming session searching for ways to better identify faults — or any type of disruption to the grid — before they turn into a catastrophic failure.

While the current electric system has protections to isolate typical faults and notify crews, it is not able to detect those situations until they’ve already happened. Or other times, the disruption is not large enough to trigger an alert.

“AWARE is the holy grail of fault management and reliability,” said Hamed Valizadehhaghi, SCE senior advisor of Grid Operations. “This AI system can precisely predict early-stage faults and pinpoint their location at a more than 80% accuracy rate within the immediate vicinity, sometimes down to a specific piece of equipment.”

The tool that started as a simple design on a whiteboard has slowly matured into an advanced solution for not only identifying when a fault will occur, but its location and the type of fault.

Through machine learning, the tool is constantly learning and developing a catalog of fault types. It is building knowledge to differentiate between the disruptions it is tracking, from objects hitting a wire, an underground issue or a transformer on the verge of failure, AWARE can tell the difference.

“It is looking at the relationships of what should be normal currents and voltages, and anytime there is deviation from those conditions it senses it and will tell you 'Hey, something is wrong',” Trehan said. “As we train it, it’s learning to save certain signatures as specific issues and drops it into a library.”

With the ability to catch an issue before it escalates, SCE is increasing its system reliability. Now, crews can respond to potential disruptions before it creates an unplanned outage, minimizing customer impacts. It also helps increase public safety and situational awareness. Previously, a downed wire or broken equipment may have slipped under the radar for a time, and this technology allows for immediate detection and response.

The tool is already being used in several locations, and Trehan and his team plan to expand the use even further.

“Our goal is to target areas where we have an opportunity for better reliability and wildfire mitigations,” said Trehan.

Edison International and SCE are being recognized for its innovation by the Edison Electric Institute at its annual conference. This year, it is recognizing SCE with its prestigious Edison Award, SCE’s fifth win going back to 1922 and third in the past eight years.

“We have created something that can protect somebody from getting hurt, and even help lower costs for grid maintenance and materials over time,” Trehan said. “All of that coming together was extremely humbling, rewarding and emotional.”

For more information about SCE’s focus on innovation, visit edison.com/innovation.