Repairing outages is among the biggest costs for modern utilities. From time spent finding the fault location to sending crews to patrol circuits, the outage restoration process can be both time-consuming and expensive.
In this Q&A, software scientist Chad Calkins explains why the Intergraph InService Fault Location advanced application from Hexagon’s Safety & Infrastructure division helps electric utilities determine the location of faults more quickly and accurately. By cutting the fault location time from hours to minutes, organizations can address problems faster and enhance the customer service experience.
Read below to learn why you should attend Calkins’ session, “Faster Outage Response with Intergraph InService Fault Location,” at HxGN LIVE, 11-14 June at The Venetian in Las Vegas.
Why is your session important for utilities to attend?
As part of Hexagon’s Intergraph InService advanced distribution management system (ADMS) solution, Intergraph InService Fault Location helps utilities drastically reduce the time it takes to locate the cause of an outage.
What big challenges do utilities face when finding a fault location during a customer outage?
Without fault location, utilities dispatch a field crew to a predicted outage location but have very little information about the origin of the outage. Input from customer phone calls can help, but when trying to respond quickly, it’s not always possible to read the comments on an order. Often, field crews must start at the source and physically traverse the mainline circuit, searching for the problem visually. This becomes even more difficult in the dark.
How does Intergraph InService Fault Location address those challenges?
Intergraph InService Fault Location calculates the probable fault locations so field crews can drive directly to the problem location and not spend time trying to determine where the fault is manually.
What do you hope attendees will take away from this session?
The major takeaway from this session will be learning more about the algorithm and data requirements. This will help utilities understand how the new solution works, the information required from their GIS / network to make this an accurate projection, and how it fits into their existing workflows for finding fault locations.
Since this is your first time attending, what are you most looking forward to at HxGN LIVE?
I’m looking forward to seeing customers I haven’t met in person before.
See Calkins’ session and many others in the HxGN LIVE session catalog, then register for the conference with our $849 Act Fast Rate. Don’t wait – this deal ends next week!
