EGM’s Meta-Alert® platform provides utilities with applications to improve operations and reduce maintenance costs. By detecting, diagnosing, and locating faults, utilities can improve their power restoration times. In addition to fault location, EGM measures several parameters like humidity, which allow us to compensate for its effect on voltage giving you within +/-3% accuracy on voltage without requiring a dangerous physical connection to ground or neutral. With the use of proprietary algorithms, EGM provides unrivaled accuracy and real business value.
AAR/DLR Reporting
Meta-Alert® provides utilities with the data and applications to determine the ambient adjusted rating (AAR), helping them determine a ten-day forecast of current capacity on transmission lines. This helps utilities comply with FERC 881 standards. In addition, the application also allows utilities to determine real-time DLR measurements.
Wildfire Ignition Mitigation
10% of wildfires are attributed to utilities caused by either vegetation encroachment, or downed power lines. These events are characterized as high impedance events that EGM’s solution can detect and locate. This allows utilities to quickly mitigate the ignition source before it becomes a major wildfire event.
Predictive Analytics
By measuring wind speed and momentary fault data, and matching their respective timestamps, predictive, pre-fault conditions can be modeled and stored in the Meta-Alert® platform helping utilities build AI models to determine the root causes of the momentary faults. This applies to any equipment or external forces exerted on the line.
Vegetation Encroachment
When a tree rubs or falls on a power line, there are unique characteristics depicted in the current and voltage measurements. These events are captured by Meta-Alert® and categorized. When compared with wind and imagery data, these events can help utilities determine where to trim vegetation proactively lessening their dependance on ineffective time-based vegetation management
Fault Location
The reliability of the US distribution grid is deteriorating due to aging infrastructure, extreme weather events, and transmission congestion which affect overall reliability. EGM provides accurate fault location detection (AFLD™) information leading to a reduction in outage restoration time and a reduction in SAIDI minutes.
Equipment Failure Detection
EGM empowers utilities with the tools necessary to determine if expensive power equipment such as transformers, switches, lightening arrestors, and others are either at risk of failure, or to determine the root causes of the failures after the fact. Once developed, the measured parameters stored in Meta-Alert® can help establish profiles leading to signature repositories for AI development.
Harmonics Analysis
Harmonic analysis on power lines is a process that determines the source and extent of harmonic distortion in a power system. The goal is to identify and quantify the presence of harmonics and their impact on the system’s operation. This information can be used to reduce or prevent equipment downtime and repair costs.
DER Impact
The proliferation of photovoltaic fields, EV charging stations, wind power, and other alternative power generation is causing utilities significant challenges and impacting their operations. EGM helps utilities determine the impact of distributed energy resources on their grid, helping them avoid outages and costly repairs.
Congestion
When transmission capacity is constrained, operators may be forced to use more expensive or less efficient generation options. These higher costs could be passed on to consumers’ monthly electric bills. Overloading can cause wires to stretch, and come into contact with objects This can lead to shorts, reduced system integrity, and wire breakage.