General

Using smart technology to boost reliability

A key backup system is about to get a lot smarter.

Automatic Throwover switches (ATOs) connect major electricity users to one of two neighboring OPPD distribution circuits. When one circuit experiences an outage, the switch “throws over” from the faulted circuit to a live one with little, if any, interruption. If the system is working properly, customers should never notice.

Now, OPPD is preparing to add new technology that will share critical ATO data immediately. Designed by OPPD engineers, new ATO boxes will help the utility diagnose issues more quickly and minimize any impacts on customers.

“It’s a real game-changer,” said Rick Stava, manager of Protection Automation & Engineering. “The bottom line is finding new ways to better serve customers and possibly catch small problems before they become big events.”

Catching problems early

The new cellular boxes will record events inside the ATO, just like a flight data recorder on a passenger jet.

“It will give us time stamps: This happened, and then this, and then it tried to do something, and whether it worked or not,” said Dan Mott, an engineer III at OPPD who is working on the project. “We’ll get a story telling us exactly what happened.”

OPPD has about 70 ATO boxes scattered throughout its service territory.

How it works

The new technology logs and transmits data in real time back to computers at OPPD. OPPD plans to start using them on some ATO boxes later this year. Newer ATOs will likely have the smart technology built into them. Stava said OPPD soon won’t buy any new models without communication capabilities.

“The communications equipment turns a basic ATO controller into a smart ATO controller,” Mott said. “It definitely gives it a lot more functionality.”

The project builds off of technology that already exists on OPPD’s reclosers, which act as a kind of circuit breaker for power lines and can automatically restore power, Mott said. Engineers will continue to analyze the information they receive from the ATO-mounted devices.

The new communications will help OPPD identify those instances before they become a problem, and the information they provide will help technicians who venture out to fix them.

Future uses for smart technology

The data that OPPD engineers collect from the new boxes will ultimately help improve the grid’s resiliency, said Aaron Rasmussen, an OPPD principal engineer who is working on the project. The boxes will track the current flowing through them, the voltage and the position of their switches. Rasmussen said utilities in other states are taking similar steps to modernize their operations.

“I think it will be a lot better for customer service,” Rasmussen said. “We’ll know immediately if the ATO switches, and we’ll be able to look and see if it switched back. Does the customer still have power? We’ll be able to determine that right away.”

Mott said engineers are still testing the technology in a lab setting to get a sense of how it will perform in the field.

To be sure, there are still challenges to tackle. Mott said some of the older ATOs may not adapt to the communications equipment as easily. Some tests are difficult to run in a lab setting.

But the engineers are optimistic. Stava said the new smart technology will help confirm that everything is working properly.

“This takes ‘perfect power’ to a whole new level,” he said.