The Challenge
The technology used by the majority of power grids today has not changed in over 100 years. As computers are going quantum and the telecom industry is deploying 5G networks, power grids are still essentially linked metal wire without integrated intelligence and real-time sensors. This antiquated system must be updated to bring power grids into the future. As grids continued to be powered by various types of energy sources, including a more diverse mix of renewables, and as energy consumption continues to rapidly increase, power grids must be modernized to ensure reliable and safe power delivery.
Today, when a power outage or other fault occurs, precisely locating the issue and discerning its cause is both difficult and costly. Troubleshooting generally consists of timing-consuming manual inspections, sector-by-sector,often timesconducted during hazardous conditions. This antiquated approach is slow, labor-intensive, costly, and dangerous.
The Solution
Smart Grid Surveillance™ (SGS) transforms power grids through comprehensive digitalization – making power grids truly smart. SGS gives grid operators a complete, real-time view of the current network status by creating grid situational awareness.
This means that outages and other faults within the grid are instantly classified and located with precision. Immediate action can be taken, such as restoring power to indirectly affected areas and deploying repair crews to the exact location of the fault. Hazardous situations, including downed power lines or tilted poles are detected instantaneously and repaired before damages or injuries occur. Intermittent faults are tagged by location in real-time, enabling comprehensive grid maintenance.
Empowering Electric Grid Operators
Exeri’s Smart Grid Surveillance™ system gives operators the tools needed to bring electric grids into the 21st century and provides customer value in four distinct categories:
Save time
Our patent pending Smart Grid Surveillance™ system provides grid operators with real time support and an overview of their networks by utilizing AI technology and proprietary algorithms, reducing the time it takes to identify, locate and resolve any issues or outages throughout the network.
100% Reduction in fault location time
60% Reduction in average outage time
save money
The integrated network of intelligent sensors are the backbone of our system, taking the costly guesswork out of power grid operations and creating a highly effective and streamlined approach to fault detection, repair and even prediction, saving both grid operators and society money. Reduced penalty costs for power outages is also achieved.
60% Reduction in outage costs
Save emissions
Exeri’s intelligent system serves to decrease CO2 emissions on multiple fronts by reducing or eliminating destructive wildfires caused by faulty power grids, vehicle use in determining the location of issues in a grid by precisely locating outages and faults, and the need for fossil fuel powered back-up generators by shortening the duration of power outages.
Reduction in direct and indirect CO2 emissions caused by wildfires, repairing outages, and reducing reliance on fossil fuels
Save lives
With precise fault detection, field personnel will spend substantially less time in hazardous conditions, dramatically reducing the risk of injury. Increased situational awareness will also reduce rogue lines and wildfires, minimizing the potential risk for persons and property in surrounding areas.
Reduced risk of death or injuries by automatic fault location and classification
The Benefits
Smart Grid Surveillance™ enables real-time situational awareness of the entire power grid and provides decision support that allows the right actions to be taken the moment an issue arises. Knowing when and precisely where faults occur throughout a grid offers a number of benefits:
Improve SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index)
Shortens power outage time by at least 50%
Immediate electricity recovery to indirectly affected customers
No manual segmentation with repeated switching (trial and error)
Improve SAIFI (System Average Interruption Frequency Index)
Predicting potential errors that will cause future interruptions
Predictive maintenance by statistical processing of problematic sectors
Increase Productivity
The right team with the right equipment to the exact fault location
Reduce operational costs by digitizing manual fault searching processes
Identify and replace cracked porcelain insulators, instead of new line investment
Increase Personnel Safety
Avoid sending field personnel to search for fault location during hazardous conditions
Avoid personnel injuries by precise location of dangerous line conditions
Improve Power Grid Resilience
Faster grid restoration after weather events (e.g., snowstorms, hurricanes, floods, wildfire) by immediately knowing which poles have been affected and where power lines have fallen to the ground
Dispatch line crews to the exact fault location for faster grid restoration
Prioritize grid repair and restoration work during and after major weather events
The Features
Grid Situational Awareness and Decision Support
SGS transforms the way grid faults are handled, providing operators with instant fault detection and categorization and real time decision support capabilities.
Fault Detection
The SGS system identifies a broad range of possible issues throughout the grid and immediately notifies the grid operator when a fault occurs, including
no power issues, short circuit PtP & PtG, flashover PtP & PtG, damaged porcelain insulator, and intermittent outages.
Fault Location
The SGS system automatically pinpoints the exact location of a fault, substantially reducing repair times. The optimized travel route to the fault is given to line workers via their mobile devices.
Tilted Poles
The SGS system immediately detects tilted or broken poles, enabling operators to repair the issue before any outage or damage occurs.
Predictive Maintenance
AI algorithms will recognize patterns concerning particular faults, notifying operators of required maintenance before new issues or outages occur.
The Technology
Exeri’s Smart Grid Surveillance™ system is based on four distinct elements that work in concert to fundamentally transform the way electric grids operate.
Smart line agents (IoT) mounted on grid poles send information to a central information collection and conclusion unit. AI algorithms and data analysis of the collected information give an in-depth insight into what is occurring in the grid in real-time. Reliability in the system is achieved by long-life batteries and redundant communication pathways.
1. Line Agent - The First Step in Digital Transformation
Patent pending wireless intelligent line agents mounted directly on grid poles, below live wire, continuously collect information concerning the grid and its surrounding environment, utilizing numerous data points.
Self calibration, remote software updates, and 10-year battery life ensure the maintenance free operation.
Installation is done quickly and easily, in 5 minutes or less per agent, without taking the power line out of service.
2. Communication – Redundant, Reliable and Secure
Exeri’s proprietary meshed radio network is an essential part of a reliable, highly secure communication layer.
All data collected by the line agents are transmitted by an energy-efficient radio protocol (868/915 MHz) to our Exeri Communication units (ExCom) and if needed, are relayed between the ExComs to ensure continuous information flow.
From the grid area to the central unit, communication can be handled either through public networks (e.g. cellular networks) or by proprietary networks. All communication is encrypted, and integrity checked.
3. The Central Unit - The Brain of Smart Grid Surveillance™
Received information from the power grid is constantly interpreted by AI and proprietary algorithms in the central Intelligent Collection and Conclusion Unit (ICCU).
The ICCU can be maintained at a utility data center on the premises of the grid operator or hosted in a private cloud solution.
4. Situational Awareness and Decision support
The grid’s current status is presented to the grid operator in the web-based Smart Grid Management System (SGMS), which is updated in real time concerning the status of the entire network – down to each individual pole.
Intuitive overview of the entire power grid
Instantaneous fault location and identification through advanced mapping technologies
Recommendations on how to isolate faults to immediately restore power to indirectly affected areas
Detailed insights to prioritize repair work during storms, floods, wildfires, and other situations
Predictive capabilities enable preventative maintenance actions to be taken to avoid future outages and other faults
Integration with smart phones, tablets, and other systems utilized by grid operators
The Philosophy
The design philosophy of SGS comes from the founders’ extensive experience working with military command and control systems, sensor systems, and telecommunication monitoring systems.
Comprehensive Grid Monitoring
Effective grid monitoring cannot be achieved by placing sensors in a few strategic positions throughout a network. It is simply not possible to determine precise fault location and cause throughout a power grid by collecting data from a few specific points. A fault passage indicator shows a direction, for example, but it is impossible to know whether it is reporting a fault or just a sharp rise in power consumption. It is not enough to know what happens at a single point when you have a branched network with a vast number of dependencies continue to vary over time. To be able to make the right decisions in real time, grid operators need an intelligent distributed sensor network. And that is exactly what SGS provides. We have designed a cost-effective system that allows grid operators to place a sensor on every single pole through a network, offering a complete picture of a grid 24 hours a day.
Easy to Use and High Functionality
When an outage or other fault occurs, the personnel in the control room should not be burdened by extensive analysis of complex data from smart sensors or other intelligent systems. They need to know at a single glance what is happening, with easy to comprehend actionable information.
Smart Grid Surveillance™ was designed with that scenario in mind. SGS presents the grid topology on an interactive, dynamic map of the entire network, with the current status visualized by different colors. This user-friendly system turns raw data into smart data, enabling grid operators to know exactly what is wrong and what needs to be repaired. SGS also informs grid operators when everything is working as intended, creating space to focus on preventative measures and repairs.
High Security and Reliability
The backbone of all modernized systems is the power grid. Thus, these networks must be protected from potential breaches at all times. SGS was designed with network security as a foundational requirement, ensuring that all communication is encrypted and all security systems redundant.
Product Information Sheet
Please provide your contact information before downloading the SGS Product Information Sheet.