Oncor Efforts

Dallas-based Oncor Electric Delivery Company began looking at smart grid technologies in 2004. "At the time, we were looking at it from the overall programmatic level, and vegetation management was just one element of it," explained Alan Bern, manager of supervisory control and data acquisition automation.

Still, Oncor considers vegetation management to be an important element. "When you look at vegetation, it is one of the potential causes of permanent outages as well as momentary outages," he said. "As such, it is a part of the evaluation of the benefits of a smart grid."

At Oncor, smart grid is actually referred to as "Smart Texas." In terms of the types of Smart Texas technologies being used for vegetation management, Oncor looks at numerous options from transmission through distribution. "We look at the overall system and identify the technologies that will integrate well and that can be deployed on a common platform," Bern said. "We want technologies that will help to improve reliability and customer service."

Oncor has found that technologies such as automated switches and fault indicators will help with any type of outage, including those that are vegetation-related. The company already has several hundred automated switches deployed, as well as several fault indicators. It is also working with the Electric Power Research Institute on a new technology called a "distribution fault anticipator," which can also have potential future applications for vegetation management, such as signaling that a tree is touching an open wire, a secondary or a primary.

"We are also installing new advanced meters," said Bern. "One of their functions is to be able to count 'blinks,' which are momentary outages." The momentary outages, of course, could possibly be caused by trees, and this would send a signal to the utility that some action might need to be taken.

National Grid's Turn

Albany-based National Grid is another utility that is seeing the potential benefits of smart grid technology for vegetation management. The utility became interested in the potential when it made the decision to look for ways to broaden the benefits of a smart grid platform -- looking at various technologies that could be supported by a smart grid platform.

For vegetation management, National Grid is currently focused on fault location technologies, such as fault indicators. "If we have a fault, the fault indicators tell us how far out it is, so we can identify the location of an interruption in a much more targeted fashion," said Vincent Forte, principal engineer for smart grid.

National Grid is also monitoring advancements taking place at IEEE and in other industry groups that involve looking at fault signatures and fault current wave forms. These advancements will provide better ways to identify the cause of a fault. "This way, in the future, by knowing the cause of a fault, the information will help us roll the right truck with the right equipment to the right location for a given situation," said Forte.

How far along is National Grid's smart grid rollout? "Currently, we are starting to roll out some of the self-healing pieces," Forte said. "We will be rolling out the true smart grid in the next couple of years."

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Intelligent Utility magazine is the new, thought-leading publication on how to successfully deliver information-enabled energy. This article originally appeared in the September/October 2009 issue.

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