by Brianna Crandall — August 24, 2016 — A new automated power restoration system is said to be turning the lights back on for PPL Electric Utilities customers in minutes, even before a work crew has made repairs.
The system led to significantly shorter power outages for thousands of homes and businesses in two recent rounds of thunderstorms, says the company, a subsidiary of PPL Corporation that provides electric delivery service to more than 1.4 million homes and businesses in Pennsylvania.
The new automated power restoration system is turning the lights back on for PPL Electric Utilities customers in minutes, even before a work crew has made repairs.
The PPL smart grid uses advanced technology that includes pole-top sensors to detect outages, a central computer that quickly analyzes the problem, and remote-control switches that reroute power and restore many affected customers to service.
During severe thunderstorms the week of July 18, the PPL smart grid restored 9,488 homes and businesses to service in an average of 1 minute and 56 seconds, says the company. The following week, during another round of severe storms, the technology restored 5,308 customers automatically in an average of 1 minute and 36 seconds.
Automated power restoration is the latest in a series of reliability improvements made by PPL. Other ways the company is improving service for customers include making lines and equipment more stormproof, installing guards to keep squirrels and other animals from causing outages, and expanded tree trimming, since trees are the major cause of outages during storms.
The result has been a 30 percent reduction in the number of power outages since 2007, with another 15 percent fewer outages expected in the next five years. During 2015, PPL Electric Utilities reliability programs prevented an estimated 410,000 power outages for customers, claims the company.
PPL explains how the smart grid system works:
A car striking a pole might trip a circuit breaker and knock out power for all customers in the neighborhood. Smart grid technology instantly detects the outage, throws switches to isolate the damaged area from the rest of the circuit, and then reroutes power to restore service to many of the affected customers. A work crew then responds to install a new pole, turning the lights back on for those customers who could not be restored automatically because they were closest to the damage.
PPL offers these additional recent examples of smart grid operations:
- A tree branch fell on a power line in Thompsontown, Juniata County, on April 9, cutting power to 1,800 customers. The PPL smart grid returned 1,016 of the customers to service in 4 minutes.
- A tree fell on a power line in the Macungie area on June 24, cutting power to 1,758 customers. In 2 minutes, 923 of the customers were returned to service.
- A storm in the Bloomsburg area June 28 cut power to 1,694 customers. In 4 minutes, smart grid had turned power back on for 1,456 customers.
- An equipment failure in the Whitehall area June 28 cut power to 1,578 customers. In 2 minutes, 856 of the customers were back in power.
PPL plans to install another 1,000 smart grid sensors and automated switches around its service territory in order to make the smart grid system even more effective and further improve service reliability for its customers.
More information on the PPL Electric Utilities smart grid, including a short video demonstrating how it works, can be found on the company’s Web site.
