https://urgentcomm.com/wp-content/themes/ucm_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Multimedia
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Galleries
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • Commentary
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • All Things IWCE
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • IWCE
    • Conference
    • Special Events
    • Exhibitor Listings
    • Premier Partners
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Register for IWCE
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookies Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • Mission Critical Technologies
    • Microwave/RF
    • T&D World
    • TU-Auto
  • In the field
    • Back
    • In the field
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Internet of Things
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Call Center/Command
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Network Tech
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Operations
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Regulations
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • Organizations
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
Urgent Communications
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • News
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Video
    • Podcasts
    • Omdia Crit Comms Circle Podcast
    • Galleries
    • IWCE’s Video Showcase
  • Commentary
    • Back
    • All Things IWCE
    • Urgent Matters
    • View From The Top
    • Legal Matters
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • UC eZines
    • Sponsored content
  • IWCE
    • Back
    • Conference
    • Why Attend
    • Exhibitor Listing
    • Floor Plan
    • Exhibiting Information
    • Join the Event Mailing List
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Terms of Service
    • Privacy Statement
    • Cookies Policy
  • Related Sites
    • Back
    • American City & County
    • IWCE
    • Light Reading
    • IOT World Today
    • TU-Auto
  • newsletter
  • In the field
    • Back
    • Internet of Things
    • Broadband Push-to-X
    • Project 25
    • Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet
    • Virtual/Augmented Reality
    • Land Mobile Radio
    • Long Term Evolution (LTE)
    • Applications
    • Drones/Robots
    • IoT/Smart X
    • Software
    • Subscriber Devices
    • Video
  • Call Center/Command
    • Back
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • NG911
    • Alerting Systems
    • Analytics
    • Dispatch/Call-taking
    • Incident Command/Situational Awareness
    • Tracking, Monitoring & Control
  • Network Tech
    • Back
    • Cybersecurity
    • Interoperability
    • LMR 100
    • LMR 200
    • Backhaul
    • Deployables
    • Power
    • Tower & Site
    • Wireless Networks
    • Coverage/Interference
    • Security
    • System Design
    • System Installation
    • System Operation
    • Test & Measurement
  • Operations
    • Back
    • Critical Infrastructure
    • Enterprise
    • Federal Government/Military
    • Public Safety
    • State & Local Government
    • Training
  • Regulations
    • Back
    • Narrowbanding
    • T-Band
    • Rebanding
    • TV White Spaces
    • None
    • Funding
    • Policy
    • Regional Coordination
    • Standards
  • Organizations
    • Back
    • AASHTO
    • APCO
    • DHS
    • DMR Association
    • ETA
    • EWA
    • FCC
    • IWCE
    • NASEMSO
    • NATE
    • NXDN Forum
    • NENA
    • NIST/PSCR
    • NPSTC
    • NTIA/FirstNet
    • P25 TIG
    • TETRA + CCA
    • UTC
acc.com

Critical Infrastructure


News

Anterix, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories release fire-mitigation test results for utilities

Anterix, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories release fire-mitigation test results for utilities

  • Written by Donny Jackson
  • 29th January 2022

Anterix and Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) announced that test results indicate that deploying low-latency private LTE networking in concert with existing utility technologies can eliminate the risk of a major cause of wildfires—live power lines as they fall to the ground.

Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories has developed a falling conductor protection (FCP) application that is designed to detect a broken distribution power line and allow a utility to de-energize the line automatically, according to a white paper jointly published by Anterix and SEL. But this functionality alone did not eliminate the fire risk, as the method of communicating the existing broken line and executing the power shutoff could take minutes, with a very real risk of a fire igniting during the interim.

But combining the SEL solution with a private LTE network operating on the 900 MHz spectrum licensed to Anterix offers significantly different results, according to the white paper.

“In a range of network congestion and signal strength scenarios, the 900 MHz private LTE network successfully supports the FCP application to de-energize the affected circuit section within one second,” the white paper states. “This is less than the time it takes for a broken conductor to fall to the ground, typically a distance of 25 feet.”

Ryan Bradetich, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories’ senior vice president of research and development, said it takes about 1.25 seconds for a broken power line to fall to the ground, creating a fire and safety hazard. Determining whether the SEL-Anterix solution could meet this challenging threshold was the primary purpose of establishing the test bed.

“We had a lot of the equipment that we could use to detect these falling conductors, but we needed a reliable way to communicate that … to our other devices,” Bradetich said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “We wanted to know, ‘Can we detect that falling conductor before it hits the ground?’ We know that we have about 1.25 seconds to open that circuit breaker to interrupt the [electrical] current, so it wouldn’t arc when it hits the ground. What we showed through our testing is that we can do it in plenty of time.

“What’s nice about this wildfire application is that … we’re not introducing anything new—they can use the protocols that are already in the relay. It’s the algorithm and the network that makes it fast enough to solve a new problem, which is that wildfire mitigation.”

Anterix COO Ryan Gerbrandt echoed this sentiment, noting that this has been one of the most “challenging” safety issues faced by utilities, particularly in recent years.

“One of the reasons we wanted to do this work was to validate the use case and make sure that it’s proven,” Gerbrandt said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “We understand some of the details round the operating condition, which was one of the purposes of the testing—not just to test the use case under ideal circumstances but try to bring some real-worldism into the use-case testing, so that we feel confident that it’s going to be scalable and portable as we bring it out to the field.

“Historically, this type of fault is not one that’s readily picked up by the current fault relay systems,” Gerbrandt said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “[Utilities have had] a way to implement this, but … the key missing piece has been the telecom network that could support the required inter-device communication and the command-side activities at a low enough latency to actually have a meaningful outcome.”

Indeed, the implications of the Anterix-SEL solution could have significant impacts to utilities and the customers they serve.

Utilities have been required to pay tens of billions of dollars—driving one utility, PG&E, into bankruptcy—after being deemed responsible for starting or contributing to dozens of wildfires that have led to more than 100 deaths and burned millions of acres, including the Camp Fire that destroyed the town of Paradise, Calif.

In an effort to mitigate such a fire risk, some utilities have utilized the strategy of public safety power shutoffs, turning off electricity service to a geographic area to eliminate the possibility of downed power lines starting fires in high-wind environments. This practice was used extensively in California during the fall of 2019, when it was criticized heavily by consumers and state officials.

If the Anterix-SEL solution works, the risk of fire from downed power lines and the need for public safety power shutoff should be reduced significantly. This also could impact utilities’ long-term insurance liability, according to sources familiar with the situation.

But Gerbrandt noted that there are other scenarios for utilities contributing to wildfires, noting that “there is no silver bullet” to resolve the issue.

“This is certainly a tool, or an arrow in the quiver” as utilities try to make their critical infrastructure safer, Gerbrandt said.

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) cited this wildfire-mitigation capability as a key reason why it signed a $50 million deal with Anterix in February 2021. Gerbrandt said that SDG&E tested this functionality for the utility’s purposes prior to signing the agreement, but the recent Anterix-SEL testing was able to examine various use cases more comprehensively.

Among the different scenarios examined was whether the private LTE (PLTE) network would perform well enough to meet the wildfire-mitigation solutions needs, even if the signal strength was low.

“This experiment demonstrates the function of FCP and its latency performance over PLTE under different congestion and signal scenarios,” according to the white paper. “Prioritization allows for reliability of application traffic. Based on the above results, we recommend operating FCP traffic over higher-priority service.

“With high, medium, and low LTE signal strength and quality, FCP also performs within protection limits. It is notable that the function of FCP still performs within the limits of the application metric, even under lower signal condition. This indicates the robust design of LTE to achieve low latency.”

 

Tags: homepage-featured-4 Alerting Systems Applications Companies Coverage/Interference Critical Infrastructure Enterprise Federal Government/Military Incident Command/Situational Awareness Internet of Things Internet of Things Interoperability IoT/Smart X Long Term Evolution (LTE) News Policy Public Safety Public-Safety Broadband/FirstNet Software State & Local Government Subscriber Devices System Design System Installation System Operation Test & Measurement Tracking, Monitoring & Control Wireless Networks News

Most Recent


  • Polaris Wireless: Manlio Allegra talks 911 Z-axis tech, future IoT opportunities
      Manlio Allegra, co-founder and CEO at Polaris Wireless, outlines the latest developments in 911 location, including recent announcements of industry compliance with FCC requirements to provide Z-axis vertical-location information for all 911 callers, even when calling wirelessly from inside a multi-story building. In addition to providing this Z-axis location for feature-phone makers like Schok, […]
  • Biden's net-neutrality strategy looks doomed
    There is mounting evidence that Gigi Sohn, President Biden’s nomination to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), may never get Senate approval. That could spell the end of his efforts to reinstate the agency’s net neutrality guidelines trashed by former President Trump. “All indications suggest that it’s over and [the White House] is just figuring out how to […]
  • Only 3% of open-source software bugs are actually attackable, researchers say
    With vulnerability-management workloads ballooning in the era of heightened software supply chain security risks, a study out today suggests that only about 3% of today’s flaws are actually reachable by attackers. The data implies that if application security (appsec) pros and developers work to focus on fixing and mitigating what’s truly attackable, they could drastically […]
  • Cabinless self-driving trucks get the green light
    Autonomous freight trucks with no driver’s cabin will be on American roads later this year. Swedish start-up Einride has received approval from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to operate its Autonomous Electric Transport (AET) trucks in a breakthrough pilot. The Pod trucks will be monitored by a human Remote Pod Operator. According to Einride, this will mark […]

One comment

  1. Avatar GBH 31st January 2022 @ 4:08 pm
    Reply

    This is a good start but most faults I’ve seen are caused when the line is hit by a tree that has not been cut back from the right of way far enough. This may or may not break the wire but the tree touching the hot conductor will arc and start the tree on fire.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

To leave a comment login with your Urgent Comms account:

Log in with your Urgent Comms account

Or alternatively provide your name, email address below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • Evergy becomes third utility to sign long-term spectrum lease with Anterix
  • Anterix inks $50 million deal with San Diego Gas & Electric to support 900 MHz private LTE system
  • Xcel Energy turns to Anterix, Motorola Solutions for initial 900 MHz LTE deployment
  • Anterix signs 900 MHz spectrum lease with utility Ameren, expects more deals in near future

Commentary


LTE and liability: Why the fire service must move forward with digital incident command

  • 2
6th May 2022

Partnership and collaboration must be the foundation for emergency communications

18th April 2022

FirstNet success means no hypothetical ‘shots’ need to be fired, Swenson says

22nd February 2022
view all

Events


UC Ezines


IWCE 2019 Wrap Up

13th May 2019
view all

Twitter


UrgentComm

Polaris Wireless: Manlio Allegra talks 911 Z-axis tech, future IoT opportunities dlvr.it/ST1384

28th June 2022
UrgentComm

Biden’s net-neutrality strategy looks doomed dlvr.it/SSyQ7d

28th June 2022
UrgentComm

Only 3% of open-source software bugs are actually attackable, researchers say dlvr.it/SSxjxK

27th June 2022
UrgentComm

Cabinless self-driving trucks get the green light dlvr.it/SSxghf

27th June 2022
UrgentComm

Autonomous vehicles in slow lane as robots accelerate dlvr.it/SSxPDQ

27th June 2022
UrgentComm

Southern Linc official discusses MCPTT migration, interoperability with new partner Catalyst dlvr.it/SSr8VD

25th June 2022
UrgentComm

Newscan: NYPD’s bomb-sniffing dogs get a high-tech upgrade to keep city safe dlvr.it/SSpSD1

25th June 2022
UrgentComm

Chinese APT group likely using ransomware attacks as cover for IP theft dlvr.it/SSmJNm

24th June 2022

Newsletter

Sign up for UrgentComm’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about Communications and Technology.

Expert Commentary

Learn from experts about the latest technology in automation, machine-learning, big data and cybersecurity.

Business Media

Find the latest videos and media from the market leaders.

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital and print audiences? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • American City & County
  • IWCE
  • Light Reading
  • IOT World Today
  • Mission Critical Technologies
  • Microwave/RF
  • T&D World
  • TU-Auto

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Events
  • Careers

FOLLOW Urgent Comms ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookies Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2022 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X