POWER July 2022 - 26

SMART GRID AWARD
Advanced Power Grid Sensors
and Switches Reduce Downtime
and Improve System Reliability
Courtesy: PPL Electric Utilities
A Fault Isolation Service Restoration module, part of an Advanced Distribution
Management Solution, has improved grid reliability, and reduced outages and
outage durations, for customers of PPL Electric Utilities. The collaboration of cross
functional teams within PPL Electric and a cultural shift in the field were keys to
the success of the project-POWER's 2022 Smart Grid Award winner.
Aaron Larson
M
odern society relies heavily on
electricity. As such, it's a real drag
when power is lost. The U.S. Energy
Information Administration (EIA) reports
that the average U.S. electricity customer
experienced more than eight hours
of electric power interruptions in 2020, the
most since the agency began collecting
electricity reliability data in 2013.
The numbers were inflated that year
due to a bevy of hurricanes and major
storms. When extenuating circumstances
are excluded from the data, the average
duration of interruptions customers
experience is consistently about two
hours annually. Many people would say
that's still too high, so power companies
are constantly looking for ways to reduce
outages and their durations.
Smart Grid Technology
One company that has taken outage reduction
seriously is PPL Electric Utilities,
part of the PPL Corporation family of companies.
PPL Electric delivers electricity to
more than 1.4 million homes and businesses
in eastern and central Pennsylvania.
The company's roughly 2,000 employees
serve customers in 29 counties, maintaining
more than 50,000 miles of power lines.
Several years ago, PPL Electric embarked
on a grid modernization strategy
to improve its power distribution system.
The company partnered with GE's
leading industrial software company, GE
Digital, for much of the work. Among
the smart grid technologies employed in
PPL Electric's enhancement project was
26
a module called Fault Isolation Service
Restoration, or FISR, part of GE Digital's
Advanced Distribution Management Solution
(ADMS) software.
FISR is facilitated through the deployment
of sensors and switches across
the grid. These smart devices allow the
segmenting of customers into smaller
spans. If an outage happens, the system
can automatically reroute power around
trouble spots to get most customers
restored within seconds, keeping the
outage contained without any human
intervention. PPL Electric was the first
utility to centrally integrate GE Digital's
FISR to automate restorations, and that
network of smart devices, coupled with
an advanced software system, has proven
to be a solid investment, creating a
self-healing grid that delivers improved
reliability and stability.
A Streamlined Outage Restoration
Process
Prior to the implementation of GE Digital's
ADMS, PPL Electric managed outages
through a variety of means. Its
previous outage management system utilized
topology and paper maps. The fault
locations were determined through either
circuit patrols in the field or split-and-test
processes. " Before building a self-healing
system, our old process required our system
operators to manually identify the
proper switchings and then dispatch line
crews to execute the transfers locally in
the field. In addition to relying heavily on
human intervention, it was a lengthy prowww.powermag.com
cess
to restore power to our customers, "
Bashar Jarrah, manager of Operations Engineering
and Energy Resource Management
at PPL Electric, told POWER.
The new process provided more visibility
on the fault locations for the operators,
who are now able to identify the
locations quickly and use the knowledge
to make more intelligent operational decisions.
Additionally, operators are now
able to remotely execute the switching
steps via telemetry, thus reducing the
duration of restoration from an average of
two hours to about two to three minutes
with FISR. This also minimizes the number
of customers impacted by outages.
Jarrah described how a possible
real-life fault scenario might unfold. " If
a feeder circuit breaker trips due to an
equipment failure or a tree falling on a
section of power line, the smart devices
that exist between the circuit breaker
and the fault location will sense a fault
current. That information is sent back to
ADMS. Additionally, the devices downstream
of the fault indicate they did
not sense a fault current, which is also
relayed back to ADMS, " he explained.
" Meanwhile, ADMS autonomously creates
a plan to open the last device that
sensed fault current and open the first
device that did not, then close the feeder
circuit breaker and a tie to the neighboring
feeder. This reroute of power keeps
as many customers in service as possible
while we take care of the repairs. "
PPL Electric estimates the system
has saved about 1.4 million customer
POWER | July 2022
http://www.powermag.com
POWER July 2022

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