As electric utilities continue to navigate the complex landscape of climate change and extreme weather events, the imperative to build a more resilient grid has never been more urgent. While significant strides have been made in recent years, the question remains: is there ever a point where the work of grid hardening to reduce wildfire risk is truly complete?
The answer, unfortunately, is no. The evolving nature of extreme weather threats from increasingly impactful wildfires means that electrical grids must constantly adapt and evolve. Success in grid hardening is not a static state, but rather a continuous process of assessment, improvement, and innovation.
Central to this ongoing effort is the strategic use of data. Data-driven insights provide utilities with a deeper understanding of vulnerabilities, enabling them to prioritize investments and allocate resources effectively. By leveraging analytics, utilities can identify patterns, forecast future risks, and develop targeted mitigation strategies. Electric utilities new to this journey need to focus their efforts on robust data collection and analysis capabilities. Building a strong data foundation will provide the necessary insights to inform decision-making and drive effective grid-hardening initiatives.
Risk managers at electric utilities must seamlessly integrate advanced fire spread prediction modeling with forecasted weather to determine where fires will spread from asset ignition sources to quantify the impacts associated with those ignitions. When combined with real-time data describing the active fire environment, this data provides comprehensive situational awareness of wildfire risk across their entire service territory. When risk managers know where the consequence of risk is highest across their service territory, they can prioritize vegetation management and decision-making more efficiently.
Another critical lesson is the need for flexibility and adaptability. As the threat of wildfire evolves, electric utilities must be prepared to adjust their strategies accordingly. This may involve reassessing priorities, exploring new technologies, or adopting innovative approaches to risk management. By maintaining a flexible mindset, utilities can stay ahead of these emerging challenges and ensure the long-term resilience of their grids.
In operations, engineers endeavor to regularly analyze circuits to plan hardening and rebuilding projects to reduce wildfire risk and increase reliability. They need to be able to effectively decide what mitigation measures and to which assets will maximize the desired reduction. By leveraging historical fire weather scenarios with advanced wildfire spread modeling, they can calculate potential impacts for individual assets. This provides the information necessary to help prioritize asset-hardening decisions.
It is essential to recognize that grid hardening is not solely a technical endeavor. It also requires significant investment in staff and their time. Developing a wildfire-focused workforce with expertise in resilience planning is crucial. Building a resilient grid is a continuous journey that requires ongoing investment, innovation, and collaboration. As utilities navigate the evolving threat of wildfire, it is essential to embrace a data-driven approach, leverage emerging technologies, and foster a strong wildfire focus by staff.
So, how can an electric utility define what success looks like? By learning from past experiences, leveraging important data, and adapting to future challenges, they can ensure that their grids remain safe, reliable, and resilient in the face of increasing wildfire threats. Learn more about the modeling science behind this work and how that science is put into practice.
