Abstract:

Blackouts have become rarer in the last decade. However, equipment wear and faults (some predictable)affect smaller scales but many parts of Distribution Networks (DNs) more frequently and add up to several hours of interruptions per customer per year. Also, utilities will preemptively de-energize thousands of customers in the path or vicinity of forest fires and floods to minimize damages and loss of life. The limited, if not zero, visibility into the medium and low voltage DNs is partly to blame for the causes, length and extent of these disruptions, as also their recurrence, due to lack of insights. Monitoring DNs, however, is hard, because they are spatially dispersed with hundreds of critical points. This talk, first introduces the digital twin of DN transformers to identify load behaviors, effects of distributed resources and power quality issues leading to DN grid faults. Secondly, we present the digital twin of overhead conductors to detect approaching forest fires and, thus, enable utilities to interrupt customers’ service only when it otherwise unavoidable. Digital twins rely on the rising use of synchrophasor measurements within DNs, that enable highly granular and time-synchronized sensing of power system assets.