Winterizing the Grid

Electric utilities should have a plan in place focused on winterizing the grid when needed.  Winter weather presents unique risks to both reliability and recovery, but there are various steps that can be taken to reduce these risks.  One of the most critical winterization steps is vegetation management. 

Winterizing the Grid Via Intelligent Vegetation Management

It goes without saying that to effectively plan for winter conditions, utilities must consider the seasonal differences that could impact infrastructure.  These seasonal differences must be compared across all four seasons to gain an understanding of potential risk. 

Of course, coming up with precise risk calculations is easier said than done. For example, ice and snow can weigh down and break tree limbs in the winter, but what is the risk delta of this scenario compared to thunderstorm winds that hit fully-canopied trees in the summer?

One solution, according to Utility Dive, is something called “intelligent vegetation management.”  This approach can improve the planning process by utilizing historical and predictive data that accounts for seasonal variations.  The approach can essentially prioritize vegetation management routes while at the same time improve outage prediction accuracy. 

Check out the Utility Dive article for a list of considerations to ponder before winterizing the grid using intelligent vegetation management, as well as a couple of case studies that quantify the potential benefits. 

Overall, electric utilities should consider the following questions before moving to a more intelligent solution:

• Are the data points currently relied upon for resource planning and outage forecasting accurate and comprehensive?  If not, improving this is the first step.
• How much does data and analysis currently factor into the vegetation management process, and how can it be better utilized going forward?
• Are seasonal differences currently factored in to vegetation management planning?  If not, they should be.
• Has your company identified the most ‘at-risk’ poles and lines?  If not, this needs to happen in order to prioritize efforts and improve outage forecasting.

The bottom line is that winterizing the grid is something that utilities need to prioritize, and one of the key means of doing this is improving the efficiency of utility tree trimming practices.