Reducing Frequency of Service Interruptions for Utilities

New capability leverages advanced analytics to mitigate momentary outages, prevent sustained outages and identify power quality issues

Burlingame, CA January 27, 2017 – Sentient Energy, Inc., a leading provider of advanced grid monitoring and analytics solutions to electric utilities for safe and reliable power delivery, today announced the availability of its “Disturbance Analytics” capability with the latest version of the company’s Grid Analytics System.

The electric grid experiences disturbances, or deviations from the steady-state power flow, thousands of times each day on every feeder under load. Always-on line sensors with powerful oscillography, such as Sentient’s Master Monitor 3 (MM3™), capture these disturbances in detail, classify them by type, and focus on the waveform signatures of potential equipment failures and indicators of incipient service disruption.

With intelligent sensors and Disturbance Analytics in place, these power flow deviations no longer remain undetected. They offer a powerful tool to direct preemptive patrol and maintenance crews to affected grid locations, effectively enabling utilities to avoid potential momentary and sustained service disruptions and reduce outage frequency, resulting in both Momentary Average Interruption Frequency Index (MAIFI) System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) reductions. This presents a major enhancement to traditional Distribution Management Systems (DMS) that can only manage sustained service outages after they occur and have been reported by field equipment. It also reduces dependence on field inspections of critical overhead and underground equipment to identify potential failure points.

“Reducing MAIFI and SAIFI with Disturbance Analytics is yet another benefit that our customers can activate on their line sensor fleet with a one-click over the air software update,“ explains Sentient Energy CEO, Jim Keener. “This is the first of many impactful new applications we are now delivering with our Grid Analytics System, and truly proves out why intelligent line sensors are an indispensable grid transformation technology.”

“Disturbance Analytics” is available in February 2017 with Sentient’s Grid Analytics System 1.5 release and requires only a remote software update to download to deployed MM3 line sensors. No field visit is necessary. Sentient Energy will showcase this application at DistrubTECH 2017 booth #1025, in San Diego, January 31 – February 2, 2017.