SP Energy Networks to harness AI for weather-related fault prediction

GB network operator SP Energy Networks is leading the Predict4Resilience project to predict the occurrence of weather-related faults up to a week ahead.

The £5 million ($6.14 million) project, which has received support from the government’s Strategic Innovation Fund, is aiming to investigate the potential of artificial intelligence to predict where faults may arise ahead of the occurrence of severe weather events.

With this the operator would be able to mobilise field workers and equipment to be ready or send them out ahead of time to minimise the time the power supplies may potentially be disrupted.

“Ahead of a severe weather event we mobilise hundreds of engineers, vehicles and generators alongside thousands of pieces of other materials so we are ready to restore power as quickly and as safely as possible,” comments Guy Jefferson, Chief Operating Officer at SP Energy Networks.

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“Projects like Predict4Resilience offer us another tool to help inform our decision making during a storm and help to reduce the time it takes us to restore power, minimising the impact of severe weather on our customers and communities even further.”

The project will draw on historic weather and fault data along with network asset and landscape information to develop machine learning models. These will then be combined with real-time weather forecasting to predict where the weather is expected to hit and what damage might result with much more accuracy than up to now.

Partners in the project, which is expected to see the technology rolled out across the UK, include the University of Glasgow’s School of Mathematics and Statistics, which is developing the AI methods that underpin the new forecasting capability and the Sia Partners consultancy, which brings the technical capabilities to build the software and its supporting infrastructure, as well as the business expertise for the roll out to the other network operators.

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks Distribution also is participating with the intent to use the findings to test a different regulatory area to enable a wider scale area to be tested.

SP Energy Networks provides electricity to over 6 million customers across 3.5 million homes and businesses throughout central and southern Scotland, north and mid-Wales and northern England.