NREL Initiative Uses AI to Squash Wildfires Caused by Downed Wires
Image courtesy of Sebastian Werner under Attribution 2.0 Generic Deed, resized to 700 x 391 pixels.
The DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has launched an initiative to utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to prevent wildfire activity caused by downed wires. One thing’s for sure – this is a very timely effort because fires of this nature are clearly on the rise!
Fire Prevention for Downed Wires
The key to the technology is to address the threat of downed wires before it happens. Specifically, NREL aims to use AI as a means of identifying faults in power lines before any damage can occur. While this may seem intuitive, it’s actually relatively difficult.
The issue is that wildfires are often triggered by high-impedance (HiZ) faults, which are essentially shorts that occur when a fallen wire comes into contact with the ground. HiZ faults are difficult to detect because they only emit a tiny amount of energy. Thus, detection of HiZ faults is the primary goal of the technology.
The technology would alert utilities in real time when a HiZ fault is detected. This would enable a response before any spark can grow into a full-fledged wildfire. NREL partnered with massive technology conglomerate Eaton to build the machine-learning algorithms and refine them via simulations that incorporated variables like ground surface differences, atmospheric moisture content, local tree species, and similar items.
The result has exceeded expectations so far, as the technology has been able to evolve to account for a large number of environmental variables.
The team is currently working with several U.S. utilities to broaden its appeal and commercialize the technology. It’s not known how long it will take to do this, but just getting to this point is impressive.
In the final analysis, we all know that wildfire activity has been trending up in recent years. Therefore, anything that can be leveraged to reduce the frequency and severity – including addressing root causes like downed wires – is a true win for emergency preparedness.
