IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2022 - 102

in my view (continued from p. 104)
✔ Grid and vegetation maintenance:
Innovate inspection technologies
and processes and invest in robotization,
qualification, reg istration,
and verification, ensuring that investments
achieve the goal of lowering
risk at the nexus of energy
infrastructure and vegetation.
✔ Grid management: Integrate
seasonal risk outlooks and early
warnings, and, given those indicators,
deploy suitable distribution system
protection protocols and activate
the crisis operational plan.
✔ External relations: Involve key
stakeholders, from landowner
associations to legislative bodies,
link them to the solution, and
explore multidisciplinary knowledge
and approaches.
E-REDES's Main Takeaways
The first visible benefit of Project
VEGA was to verify that E-REDES
has a track record as an early adopter
of best practices in aerial energy grid
maintenance. We ran regular year-round
helicopter-based thermographic inspections
for more than 25 years, and we
added lidar inspections 15 years ago.
Thermographic and ultraviolet inspection,
preventive maintenance of energy
grid assets, and lidar inspection to collect
evidence of vegetation entering the
grid-protective zone all help to mitigate
the risks related to overhead wires in
vegetation areas.
The second interesting point was
the realization that many of E-REDES's
efforts were invisible to most
stakeholders. These are not only external
stakeholders but also include active
participants as in E-REDES's app
channel, where anyone can report a
situation of vegetation encroaching on
a grid-protective zone.
With this finding, we embarked on a
yearly " roadshow " to meet with different
stakeholders' forest and fire experts.
Participants range from Portugal's parliament
to landowner federations as
well as research and investigation bodies.
The event includes a thematic conference
about vegetation management
where we invite all stakeholders. These
meetings and yearly conferences often
concluded with " we never thought "
statements from the other side and
ideas on how to unite efforts and areas
of knowledge.
During the roadshow, we also meet
with emergency operational authorities
since E-REDES's crisis operational plan
activation criteria are related directly to
their warnings, and every crisis is managed
in close cooperation with them. This
plan was first designed to answer winter
weather challenges and later expanded
to include the wildfire season. It defines
activation levels (prevention, alert, disturbed,
and emergency). For each level,
this plan
✔ establishes the activation criteria,
the chain of command that
can trigger them, and the organizational
model to set
✔ defines the procedures to follow
and the human and material
resources to engage in the
response and recovery
✔ determines the during- and aftercrisis
procedures that will enable
continual improvement.
To reach and involve the public, we
learned the importance of a local media
presence. We launched a campaign
based on the E-REDES app, inviting
everyone to take part. The campaign
opened a channel for anyone to report
georeferenced photos of situations
where vegetation is encroaching on energy
infrastructure.
Another finding was the need for
more focus on continuous improvement
efforts in parallel with our daily
work. In our steering committee meetings,
workstream coordinators and activity
facilitators now are challenged to
set goals for the next period and reconcile
achievements with goals set.
With this focus, some long-sought projects
came to light. Examples include a
georeferenced dashboard with the efforts
made by field teams in vegetation management
and an alert algorithm that reports
situations where distribution grid protection
system signals and civil protection fire
location alerts are correlated.
Conclusion
There are lessons from our experience
that apply universally to all electric
companies. The fact that our industry
performs highly technical work under
stringent performance requirements
does not absolve us of the responsibility
to involve our stakeholders in
understanding our daily efforts. The
detachment resulting from unawareness
creates gaps and disables bridges
fundamental to mitigating emergencies
and creating solutions to crises. These
situations will occur more frequently
due to climate change.
Another takeaway is to look carefully
around us. Since we are used to
finding expert solutions among our
engineering and technical bodies, we
must overcome the notion that the only
option is to develop and internally master
new fields of knowledge. The only
timely way to answer climate change
effects is to merge efforts. Electric
companies should focus on their core
expertise and trust others to do the best
in their fields, thereby also helping to
promote those fields of knowledge.
We should find the best in specific
fields, from fire risk index calculations
to satellite imagery analysis. We need
to develop win-win partnerships with
collateral benefits for other stakeholders
who will see us not as part of the
problem but as promoters of solutions.
Acknowledgment
This article was written in collaboration
with Ricardo Messias, E-REDES's
director of vegetation management.
p&e
102
ieee power & energy magazine
january/february 2022
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2022

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