Sense - Fire Risk Prediction and Detection as Sense Meters Are Rolled Out?

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Hi @kevin1, it’s been a long while since I’ve engaged with the Community despite often wanting to make time to get back into the discussion.

I saw this article in the NYT and immediately thought of posting it to Sense. Go figure you had already done that.

Looking forward to reading through your thoughts on this.

My first thought is that apart from the voltage drop analysis and potential Utility supply fluctuations and events immediately prior to a potential fire that would help to pinpoint the cause and inform liabilities (Whisker Labs) Sense’s forte would be to be significantly more preemptive about them in the first place.

How though, when the high voltage supply is there unless shut down as a last resort? And as this article highlights, the energy spikes are way up the grid chain.

Answer (maybe): evidence in the form of Sense data and analysis over time in fire-prone areas can help prioritize the hardening (burying) of the supply wires and perhaps even using the bulk data to extrapolate out to what the wider grid is doing in response to weather (wind/rain/snow) events.

In terms of the analysis we seem to live in a time where AI, given the feed (Sense + weather + whatever grid data can be gleaned), could correlate things quite efficiently.

Welcome back @ixu ,

Not sure I have much more thought on this one, except that Ting is giving early insights into what near-real-time, high resolution voltage monitoring at the meter might be able to do - provide earlier detection of potential billion dollar disasters. This is good PR for Ting, but also highlights the stodginess of big utilities - “ The utility has agreed to meet with Whisker Labs about the data as part of its review.” One would think that utilities would want distant, early warning from wherever they could get it.

I’m also wondering the kinds of numbers of units needed to resolve major grid issues vs local ones. It looks to me like Ting does some kind of major filtering to get an aggregate dip for an area. I’m close to San Jose, but my big picture individual power quality from Ting for that same day looks very different. Don’t really see anything around 6:11PM.