august 13, 2020 webinar 8.13.20 final.pdf · transformer at the automatic recloser at the edge of a...

August 13, 2020

Travis English

Training & Outreach

Specialist

Wildfire Webinar Series

Wildfires in the West

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4

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Agenda

▪WECC, Steve Ashbaker

▪Bonneville Power Administration, John Lahti

▪ Pacific Gas & Electric, Matthew Pender

▪ Southern California Edison, Tom Rolinski & Thuan Tran

▪ San Diego Gas & Electric, Brian DAgostino

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August 13, 2020

Steve Ashbaker

Reliability Initiative Director



August 13, 2020

John Lahti

Bonneville Power

Administration



WECC Wildfire Webinar Series


BPA PresentationAugust 13, 2020

BPA system Quick Facts

BPA’s system is:

Primarily spread across 4 states (WA, OR, ID, &

MT)

31 hydroelectric dams and one nuclear plant

Third-party wind and solar becoming a larger

source

Over 15,000 line miles

The Basis of the BPA Approach

Fire = Fuel + Ignition Source

= +

Conditions across the BPA system

Fuel

Vegetation Management

Annual audits and LiDAR complete and show good conditions

Rights-of-way well maintained

Soil conditions are typical (not overly dry) across the region

Ignition Source

Asset Management

Fire mitigation list

High-risk items completed (Marker balls, cross arms, etc.)

Medium-risk items are still being worked

Current Wildfire Risks

Risks

Conditions are drying across the West

Farming hazards

Off-right-of-way tree issues

Mitigations

More frequent inspections of farming areas

No manual reclose in red-flag areas (inspection required)

Educating the public about the dangers

BPA Develops Wildfire Risk Tools

BPA has created its first fire risk tool/dashboard where asset condition and

ignition probability are brought together to inform investment and

maintenance decisions as well as the groundwork for resiliency

This tool has already informed BPA’s first emergency corrective action to

mitigate for fire

This tool has allowed BPA and federal partners like USFS/DOI, etc., coordinate

on what parts of the system require new ways of thinking, including

vegetation management practices and access road designs

This includes the design standards on how BPA approaches access road

designs in areas of the system with high wildfire risk to create more

intended ROW firebreaks

Allowing for discussion on what vegetation management practices are

required in areas of high wildfire risk while maintaining NERC compliance

with tree growth

CHR Wildfire Risk Dashboard

Summary

BPA is well prepared for the wildfire season

Fuel sources have been minimized

Ignition sources have been reduced based on risk

Operational mitigations are in place

Rights-of-way are seen as a firebreak

Continuing efforts to develop and use wildfire

risk/analysis tools

Multiple discussions with USFS, including viewing a suite of their fire

modelling tools to improve our vegetation practice, emergency

preparedness, asset health, etc.

Questions?

Fire = Fuel + Ignition Source

August 13, 2020

Matthew Pender

Pacific Gas & Electric



Wildfire Lessons Learned & Best Practices

Matt PenderCommunity Wildfire Safety Program

21Some of the measures included in this presentation are contemplated as additional precautionary measures intended to further reduce the risk of wildfires.

Community Wildfire Safety Program

REDUCE WILDFIRE IGNITION POTENTIAL• Asset inspection and repair

• Enhanced vegetation management

• System automation

• System hardening

• Public safety power shutoffs

1

IMPROVE SITUATIONAL AWARENESS• Weather stations

• High-definition cameras

• Wildfire Safety Operations Center (WSOC)

• Meteorology

2

REDUCE IMPACT OF PSPS EVENTS• Reduce impacted

customers

• Reduce duration

• Reduce frequency

• Improve coordination with and support communities and customers

3

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Advanced Vegetation Management Analytics

Objective: Develop and demonstrate advanced analytical models using existing remote sensing data to proactively identify which trees pose the greatest risk to PG&E’s system, with the goal of applying vegetation management resources where they will be most effective.

Some of the measures included in this presentation are contemplated as additional precautionary measures intended to further reduce the risk of wildfires.

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Wildfire Safety Inspections – Drones

Drone inspections will be conducted and will complement and further enhance the ground and climbing visual inspections.

Standardized Structure Model Template for Camera Angles

High-resolution UAV image

Cracked insulator visible in zoomed imageNote: Icons above do not reflect all images/angles that will be captured as part of drone inspections

Drone inspection crew setting up for drone inspection


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Proactive Wire Down Mitigation

Objective: Demonstrate Rapid Earth Fault Current Limiter (REFCL) technology at a PG&E substation serving a high fire-risk area, to assess its effectiveness at automatic current reduction in wires down events, with the goal of drastically reducing the likelihood of wires down events causing wildfires.

Normal Ground Fault With REFCL Technology


https://youtu.be/GSrR2RC8Ykk

https://youtu.be/hOnp0vKrFbg

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Data Analytics for Predictive Maintenance

Objective: Leverage GIS, weather, SmartMeter, SCADA and other data to develop and demonstrate analytical models that predict when maintenance will be needed for distribution assets.


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2020 Meteorology Improvements

•Developed and deployed Outage Producing Wind (OPW2.0) model for more precise outage forecasts.

•2-km, 30-year weather climatology production is 66% complete. Expected to have 30+ years completed by early July.

•AWS cloud-based environment established to ingest and process weather data for PSPS scoping.

•ArcGIS Pro environment established and linked to AWS cloud to ingest weather and PG&E asset data for improved PSPS scoping.

•Working with Technosylva to evaluate integration of fire spread modeling outputs into PSPS scoping.

SNOWACCUMULATION

POMMS 2kmWind Gusts(kts)/Wind SpdBarbs

Init: 04/07/2020 HR: 05AMValid: 04/08/2020 HR: 11PM

TEMPERATURE

POMMS 2km2m Temp (°F)/Wind Barbs (kts)

Init: 04/06/2020 HR: 05AMValid: 04/08/2020 HR: 05PM

WINDGUSTS

POMMS 2km Init: 04/07/2020 HR: 05AMTotal SWE (in) Valid: 04/11/2020 HR: 11PM


EXAMPLE 2KM HIGH RESOLUTION MODEL OUTPUT

HIGH RESOLUTION MODELING IMPROVEMENTS


Satellite Fire Detection and Alert System

• Fire Detections and Alerts are triggered from 5 satellites (3 polar orbiting, 2 geosynchronous)

• Satellites: GOES 16, GOES 17, Aqua- & Terra-Modis, SuomiNPP-VIIRS

• SSEC-customized data feed for faster alerts

• Data refresh as quick as 1 minute, at least every 5 minutes

• Allows faster response, awareness and tracking of emerging incidents

• Fire intensity monitoring

Key Takeaways

Partnership with Space Science and Engineering Center


Temporary Microgrid Infrastructure• Partnering with communities to identify opportunities to implement microgrid

infrastructure and support customers

• Temporary Microgrid opportunity in Calistoga (Napa County) identified, needed a location to deploy temporary generation at a Preinstalled Interconnection Hub (PIH)

• Community focused partnership with City Manager, Fire, Police resulted in first-of-a-kind large PIH site, able to support 1,500 customers during PSPS

• Turned a blighted area into a dog park, with sperate entrance for generator; transformer, and switch gear fenced off from public; able to support

Before After

Thank YouFor questions regarding PG&E’s Community Wildfire Safety Program, please:

Call us at 1-866-743-6589

Email us at [email protected]

Visit pge.com/wildfiresafety

Visit www.pge.com/wildfiremitigationplan for a copy of the 2020 WMP and related details

mailto:[email protected]

http://pge.com/wildfiresafety

http://www.pge.com/wildfiremitigationplan

August 13, 2020

Tom Rolinski & Thuan Tran

Southern California Edison



SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDISON

Fire Science Program

Tom Rolinski

Fire Scientist

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Bringing together the latest science and technology to help with wildfire mitigation

Fire Science Program

Weather StationsHigh Definition CamerasFuel Moisture SamplingRemote SensingAdvanced ModelingFire Spread Modeling

Photo Curtesy of Twitter

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Over 900 weather stations installed so far

Weather Stations

Each weather station provides updates of temperature, humidity, and wind

every 10 minutes

High Definition Cameras

• Enables fire agencies to quickly identify, confirm, triangulate and respond to emergent wildfires

• Provides SCE Fire Management with real-time tool to assess impact to SCE assets

• 169 HD cameras installed

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Santiago Peak HD Camera

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http://www.alertwildfire.org/orangecoca/index.html

High Definition Cameras

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Live Fuel Moisture• 3 regions• 12 sampling sites• Physically collecting plant

samples

Fuel Moisture Sampling

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Remote Sensing

Wind ProfilersUsing LIDAR to sample winds in the lower atmosphere• Potential pilot program• Sampling across the Eastern

Sierra• Real-time wind measurements

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Advanced modeling

Advanced modeling

SCE’s High PerformanceComputing Clusters (HPCC)

Coarse Resolution

Models

National Center for Environmental Prediction

(NCEP)

Twice Daily

Twice Daily

WRF High Resolution (1-2 km) weather and fuels output

40-year, hourly climatology of

weather and fuels

SCE WeatherStations

Fire Spread Modeling

Satellite Data

Sea Surface Temperatures

GFSNAMHRRR

Twice Daily

RAP/HRRR Only

Dat

a A

ssim

ilati

on

Fire Spread Modeling

• Each day, our vendor, Technosylva, runs fire simulations out to 3 days to help show which of our assets are at most risk for starting a wildfire or will be impacted by a wildfire

• Real-time fire simulations for current events or for “what if” scenarios

Questions?

Tom RolinskiFire Scientist6000 Irwindale AveIrwindale, [email protected]: 626-476-8598

mailto:[email protected]

WECC Wildfire Webinar Series

Wildfire Risk Mitigation at SCE

August 2020

Thuan Tran

• 2015: 3,231 fires were identified, of which 251 were associated with electrical power

• 2016: 2,816 fires were identified, of which 270 were associated with electrical power

• ~90% of all the fires associated with electrical equipment in SCE’s service area are related to distribution-level voltages (33kV and below).

• The two greatest ignition drivers are—

• contact from object (CFO) – 60%

• equipment/facility failure – 40%

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8% of California fires caused by electric power

Sources: CalFire 2015 Wildfire Activity Statistics

An Overview of Wildfire and Causes

To understand the fundamental behavior of fire ignitions, SCE studied to the elementary science behind fire ignitions and propagations. The fire triangle demonstrates that a fire requires three elements:

(1) heat source that starts the ignition;

(2) fuel or dry vegetation in the case of a wildfire; and

(3) oxygen or catalysts such as wind gusts to propel the wildfire.

Eliminating or reducing any one of these three elements in turn reduces the risk of fire ignition and its propagation.

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Understanding the Basic Fire Science Informed the Development of SCE Wildfire Mitigation

Principle of Wildfire Grid Hardening and Technology Development

• Four key strategies in reducing/eliminating fault energy:

Prevent fault

Detect pre-fault or incipient fault condition and remediate

Reduce fault energy

Enhance Fault Protection

EDISON CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION 45

• Reducing or eliminating fault energy is an

effective approach in removing the Heat

component of the fire triangle

Examples of Four Key Wildfire Mitigation Strategies

• Fault prevention: covered conductor prevents fault from contact with objects, such as tree, metallic balloon, animals and other conductor/wire, especially in windy conditions

• Incipient Fault Detection or Pre-fault Prediction: a system that predicts a fault before it occurs by detecting signals generated from early damages, defects of equipment, conductor, connectors, etc.

• Fault Energy Reduction: a device or system that reduces the fault energy by quickly detecting a fault and suppressing the fault current, thus minimizing the possibility of fuel ignition

• Enhanced Fault Protection: a protective device or system that uses advanced detection methods to interrupt a fault before it becomes an ignition risk. This type of system goes beyond conventional overcurrent protection schemes.


More Examples

Technology Fault

Prevention

Incipient Fault

Detection

Fault Energy

Reduction

Enhanced Fault

Protection

Covered Conductor X

Branch-line Current Limiting Fuses X

Fast-Curve Settings for line Reclosers

and Circuit Breakers

X

Substation Current Limiting Fuses X X

Rapid Earth Fault Current Limiters

(REFCLs)

a. Feeder Isolation-bank

b. Sub Arc Suppression Coil

c. Sub Ground Fault Neutralizer

X X

Branch-line multi-phase electronic

fuse

a. Siemens FuseSaver

b. S&C TripSaver

X X

Low-energy Recloser

a. S&C IntelliRupter

b. SEL Voltage Controller/Recloser

X X

Fault Predictive System

a. S&C IntelliRupter

b. SEL Voltage Controller/RAR

X

Distribution Open Phase Protection X


Wildfire Technology Deployment Strategy

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Description Application Status/Findings

Three Layer Covered Conductor:• Conductor—ACSR/Copper• Conductor Shield—Semiconducting• Inner Insulation Layer—Crosslinked LDPE• Outer Layer—Crosslinked HDPE

Replace bare conductors:

• Cross-arm construction

• Spacer cable construction

Recent Accomplishments• Developed comprehensive testing,

standards in 2018• Projected to complete 1,000 circuit

miles of installation in 2020

Findings/Lessons Learned• Effectively mitigated contact-related

fault• Withstand some tree falls

1 of 2

Covered Conductor

50


SCE is evaluating three versions of

REFCL:

1. Ground Fault Neutralizer

(substation installation)

2. Arc Suppression Coil

(substation installation)

3. Isolation Bank (feeder/circuit

installation)

Ground Fault Neutralizer

• Reduces single line to

ground fault current to under

a half ampere, after 2-4

cycles of a few amperes. This

is done by a Ground Fault

Neutralizer which consists of

an arc suppression coil in

parallel with an inverter

supplied by Swedish Neutral

or Trench for the purpose of

canceling out residual fault

currents.

Ground Fault Neutralizer

• Applicable to substations

which only feed 3 wire

distribution circuits. All circuits

out of the substation get the

same benefit.

• REFCL Technology Hardware

• Substation application

of GFN

• Substation application

of ASC

• Isolation Bank with ASC

• Isolation bank

Ungrounded

• Substation applications require

all circuitry to be 3-wire out of

substation

• Distribution isolation banks are

applied to sectionalized 4-wire

source circuitry from 3-wire

REFCL protected circuitry.

Recent Accomplishments• SB901 feasibility assessment on

track for a 2019 completion. Initiating steps for a pilot energizing in Q2 2021.

Findings/Lessons Learned• Focus distribution circuits that do

not require replacement of phase to neutral connected transformers. Australia has over 5,000 miles of protected circuitry. PG&E is on track for Q2 2020 energization of EPIC demonstration.

1 of 2

Rapid Earth Fault Current Limiter (REFCL)

51


• Resonant Grounding

Substation with Arc

Suppression Coil (ASC)

• Reduces the single line to

ground fault current to 2-

10% of the fault current the

system would be if it were

ungrounded. On small

substations and pole tops

this can be enough to reduce

the fault current below a half

ampere where ignition

becomes very unlikely.

• Resonant Grounding Isolation

Transformer (RGIT)

• Installing an isolation

transformer at the Automatic

Recloser at the edge of a

high fire area then resonant

grounding it. This can

typically reduce the fault

current beyond the

transformer to below a half

ampere where ignition

becomes very unlikely.

• Resonant Grounding with Arc

Suppression Coil (ASC)

• Applicable to substations

which only feed 3 wire

distribution circuits. All circuits

out of the substation get the

same benefit. For small

substations can match the 90%

reduction in ignitions from

single line to ground faults of

the ground fault neutralizer. At

larger substations it can get

some of the reduction in

ignitions at a lower complexity.

• Resonant Grounding Isolation

Transformer

• Can be deployed when there is

an Automatic Recloser on a

distribution circuit at the edge

of a high fire area with only

three wire circuitry beyond it.

• 1 location target for 2020

WMP.

Recent Accomplishments• RG Substation

SB901 feasibility assessment on track for a 2019 completion. Initiating steps for a pilot energizing in 2021.

• RG Isolation TransformerConstructed at EDEF and showed a dramatic reduction in ignitions from single line to ground faults.

Findings/Lessons Learned• RG Substation

Applicable to small substations where fault current can be reduced to very low levels and substations where space limits application of the Ground Fault Neutralizer.

• RG Isolation TransformerApplicable to high fire parts of circuits, particularly if phase to neutral transformers exist on other circuits fed by the same substation bus.

2 of 2

Rapid Earth Fault Current Limiter (REFCL)

52


Evaluate and pilot Siemens

Fusesaver with a field demo at

select locations.

The Fusesaver is a self-powered,

electronically controlled device

and is reviewed for application as

an alternate to Branch Line Fuses

for longer radial lines.

Device pilots are to gain

experience, Engineering expects

product changes in coming years

to advance the use of the product

to align with REFCL system

protection.

• Mitigate some Energized Wire

Down cases

• Prevent load-side wire down

by "gang operate" other

phase(s) on a single-phase fault

• No reclosing for present pilot

plan

• Simplify application,

construction, training

• No RCU (control box)

required removing remote

monitoring/control to

reduce expense

• After initial trip, other phases

“gang” open in ~1-2sec

• Mitigate ferroresonance

• Devices configured to gang trip

during manual operation

• 60 sec. delay for field to

get in the clear

• Works in conjunction with

REFCL/ASC system protection

Recent Accomplishments• Eight units installed in Menifee

district

Findings/Lessons Learned

• Short-circuit interrupting rating can impact install

Branch Line Protection - Fusesaver

53


This project will evaluate S&C’s

low energy recloser "pulsecloser."

SCE seeks to learn more about the

advantages of reduced fault

energy for manual closing and

automatic reclosing operations.

The Intellirupter is different from

conventional reclosers in that it is

able to perform a low energy test of

the faulted line by using two very

quick pulse (3-8 milliseconds in

duration) to determine of the fault

condition is still present. The pulse

testing ability reduces the fault

energy during the test to about 2-

5% of what would be seen using a

conventional recloser.

Instead of replacing SCE standard

RAR, consider to implement

IntelliRupter as an additional

reclosing device after a PSPS to take

advantage of its low-energy reclose.

Recent Accomplishments• Test unit put into service

11/22/2019• 12-month testing initiated

Findings/Lessons Learned• 21 Technical Issues are

open (11 Hardware, 8 Commissioning, 2 Software)

• Many aspects of the device are different than SCE RARs, requiring collection of new equipment and procedures to obtain benefits.

• SDG&E does not use "Pulsecloser" feature

IntelliRupter

54


Distribution Fault Anticipation

(DFA) is a predictive algorithm

that leverages electrical system

measurements to recognize

current and voltage signatures

indicative of potential pending

equipment failures.

This is a project associated with

Texas A&M

Recent Accomplishments• Completed installation of 60 DFA.

Remaining to be installed early next year.

Findings/Lessons Learned• The technology will be evaluated in

2020 as part of the pilot.• Other utilities are using this DFA

technology

DFA recognizes SCE has potential

equipment weaknesses/failures to

allow for proactive remediation,

thus avoiding faults and minimizing

ignition risks. Under this pilot, SCE is

investigating the use of DFA to

predict failures based on voltage

and current signatures for proactive

mitigation.

Distribution Fault Anticipation (DFA)

Known gaps- Require more work to identify locations- Can’t detect secondary issues or conductor strand damages (such as gunshot)IND.T, an Australian company, offers similar protective capabilities using field devices. This system is called Early Fault Detection (EFD) and claims to fill the gaps the DFA has.

55


Develop and test Open Phase

Detection (OPD) logic for existing

relay platforms (GE L90/D60 &

SEL-421/SEL-411L) on the

Transmission (220KV) and Sub-

Transmission (115kV/66kV)

systems with single conductor per

phase.

OPD will be used on transmission

(220kV) and Sub-Transmission

(115/66k) Systems with single

conductor per phase with adequate

relay platforms such as the GE

L90/D60 & SEL-421/SEL-411L.

If the broken conductor is

successfully detected and the line

is tripped, then fire ignition risk is

reduced

Recent Accomplishments• Commenced OPD pilot at Big

Creek 3&4 220kV transmission line

Findings/Lessons Learned• This Open Phase Detection

logic is unable to detect a broken conductor on Transmission systems with multi-conductor per phase. The majority of SCE’s Bulk Power Transmission system is multi-conductor per phase

Transmission Open Phase Detection

56


Utilize end point sensors to detect

open phase conditions and be

able to operate a circuit breaker

or RAR within approximately 1-

second. The 1-second timing is

approximately the time it takes a

conductor for fall from installed

position to ground. The system

has a large dependency on

communication, specifically radio

communication the most likely

provided the Distribution network

topology.

SCE is considering this technology

for 33kV and below application

voltages. This type of protection

may be able to mitigate ignitions

related to down conductors, i.e.

energized conductors contacting

earth, or possibly conductors

contacting communication lines

while falling to earth.

Other technologies are also

targeting these types of fault

conditions for 3-wire systems,

however Open Phase Protection

may also be applicable for 4-wire

systems. Technology is in

development for detection and

communication possibilities, a

deployment strategy has yet to be

created.

Recent Accomplishments• Tie Remote Sectionalizing

Recloser (RSR) initial pilotprogramming complete with on-going monitoring

• High-speed radios evaluated in lab

• Field verification for ABB radio placement in progress

Findings/Lessons Learned• Initial alarming settings are too

sensitive• Average radio count from ABB

is 5 per RAR.

Distribution Open Phase Protection

August 13, 2020

Brian DAgostino

San Diego Gas & Electric



august 13, 2020 webinar 8.13.20 final.pdf · transformer at the automatic recloser at the edge of a...

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