Oregon utilities crunch big data, tap artificial intelligence to reduce wildfire risks – By Ted Sickinger (The Oregonian/OregonLive) / June 22, 2022
As Oregon’s largest utilities seek to better protect themselves and their customers from the impacts of wildfires and other extreme weather events caused by climate change, they are increasingly harnessing the power of big data analytics and artificial intelligence to guide them.
Both PacifiCorp and Portland General Electric are plowing millions of dollars into systems to forecast weather and fire risks at a much more granular level across their service territories, track their transmission and distribution systems in real time, and model potential outages and risks during a given weather event.
It’s a fast-evolving approach to the way utilities prepare for and respond to extreme weather, one designed to guide their investments in tree-trimming and upgrades to transmission and distribution systems, improve their situational awareness, and provide predictive capabilities on where and when to pre-position crews or turn off the power during periods of high wildfire risk.
