IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2022 - 64

Managing
UTILITIES AROUND THE WORLD ARE FACING UN -
precedented levels of fire risk from routine electrical faults and
failures in transmission and distribution lines and equipment.
The risk is elevated by changing weather patterns that produce
extreme drought conditions and violent storms. These utilities
are confronting aging power apparatus and difficult-to-detect
failure and arcing fault scenarios. Major fires in recent years
have increased public awareness of the risk.
San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E) is among
California utilities facing this hazard, dealing with its causes,
and engaging in major efforts to reduce it. The program of risk
reduction is based largely on innovative solutions-experimenting
with and implementing a variety of new technologies
and strategies. There is no single approach to fire
risk reduction; SDG&E pursues a variety of apparatus
upgrading programs and operational and
event responses, as it develops new protection and
control equipment and methods.
This article presents SDG&E's range of
strategies for reducing fire risk, including gridhardening
replacements, weather monitoring,
adaptive operating procedures, adaptive distribution
fault detection and tripping designs, and
faster and more sensitive new transmission line
protection schemes. In addition, SDG&E has
been the industry leader in the development of
distribution falling conductor protection (FCP)
based on phasor measurement units (PMUs)
and synchrophasor data streams gathered across
distribution circuits.
As we explain, detecting a conductor break
and de-energizing a circuit while the conductor
is still falling avoids an arcing ground fault
that can ignite dry vegetation-the broken conductor
has no power when it lands. SDG&E is
preparing to deploy new transmission line FCP
schemes based on PMU measurements, which
can trip a line and avoid fire ignition risk in the
same way that it does for distribution circuits.
We summarize companywide strategies and
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2021.3122733
Date of current version: 19 January 2022
64
ieeepower & energy magazine
1540-7977/22©2022IEEE
january/february 2022
give technical specifics for each protection and control strategy
in the following sections.
Grid Hardening and Operation
Adaptations to Reduce Risk
SDG&E has developed a broad fire safety enhancement
program combining fundamental, commonsense upgrade
efforts to reduce root causes of risk through new technologies
to detect hazardous events at specific locations on the
grid. The company has invested billions of dollars for more
than a decade in the risk assessment and mitigation phase of
its wildfire risk control plan. In this section, we summarize
highlights of that implementation plan.
Wildfire Risks
U

IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2022

Contents
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2022 - Cover1
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2022 - Cover2
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2022 - Contents
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IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2022 - Cover3
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