Seattle City Light has completed installation in Shoreline and Lake Forest Park of automated switching technology that is designed to speed the restoration of service when a power line is damaged.
“Any loss of electricity service can be inconvenient and frustrating,” said Michael Pesin, City Light’s smart grid architect. “City Light is using technology to speed the restoration of service and reduce the impact on our customers.”
Crews installed the equipment on two feeder lines in a pilot program to test its performance during storm season this fall and winter. The equipment is now fully operational.
Lineworkers prepare to install an automated switch in Shoreline.
Crews install an automated switch in Shoreline.
The new technology is designed to recognize outages and automatically close or open switches to isolate the affected section of a circuit. Power is re-routed to restore service to the areas that are not directly affected. This process takes place in a matter of seconds.
In addition, the technology gives City Light the ability to actively monitor and manage its distribution system in real time. It will improve the utility’s response to outages and incidents, which will save time and money while improving customer service.
If the pilot effort proves successful, City Light intends to install the technology, called distribution automation, on other feeder lines throughout its service territory.
The equipment is part of a larger effort to build a smarter grid in Seattle. Other components include technology to monitor and control substations, advanced meters and components to optimize the delivery of electricity to customers. Installation of these technologies will support the utility in reducing energy losses, improving the integration of electricity generated by solar panels on customers’ roofs and providing enhanced support for customers with electric vehicles.
Seattle City Light is the 10th largest public electric utility in the United States. It has some of the lowest cost customer rates of any urban utility, providing reliable, renewable and environmentally responsible power to about 750,000 Seattle area residents. City Light has been greenhouse gas neutral since 2005, the first electric utility in the nation to achieve that distinction.
J Anderson says
It’s nice to see SCL keep current keeping current…
Thanks for your efforts.!.!.
thomses says
You’re welcome. We’re always looking for opportunities to improve the service we provide to you and our other customer-owners.
thomses says
You’re welcome. We’re always looking for opportunities to make things better for our customer-owners.
SeattleCobra says
I’m sitting here in the dark reading this on my iPhone in Richmond Beach. Power has been out since around one today. SCL recently came through and trimmed some trees along my road. My neighbor told them to go ahead and take down any suspicious trees on his property that could potentially be a problem, but was told by the tree service that they were instructed to only remove limbs and trees that could interfere with the main feeder on the street. My point is that until SCL gets serious about either doing some major pruning and tree removal and also burying feeder lines in the street, we’ll continue to be the first ones out of power and the last ones restored. Shoreline’s motto: home of the big red band across SCL’s outage map.
thomses says
Thank you for your note and your support for best practices in vegetation management to protect the reliable delivery of electricity. We support and follow those practices.
For a tree to “potentially be a problem” as you described, it would have to be able to interfere with one of the power lines that delivers electricity to the neighborhood. We do not trim for clearance around an individual service line. That is the responsibility of the home- or business owner.
City Light operates on a four-year trimming cycle, which means we trim vegetation along a quarter of our power lines each year and leave enough clearance for the projected growth over the next three years before we come back in the next cycle. Our trimming is designed to protect the reliability of the electrical system and protect the health of the tree.
This approach has made a noticeable difference in the number of tree-related outages. That said, trimming cannot eliminate the possibility of tree-related outages as evidenced by Saturday’s storm, which uprooted entire trees and snapped large limbs across a wide swath of Western Washington.
For more details, please visit http://www.seattle.gov/light/vegmgmt/treetrim.htm