Lightning Strike Analysis For Outage Prevention

Dr. Comfort Manyame, GISPMid-South Synergy Electric Coop, Navasota, TX

USA

Introduction• Mid-South Synergy has 23000 Electric and

2500 water meters

• 2800 miles of distribution line

• Six county 1600 mile-2 territory

Outages – 2011/2012

Rationale• 30 % of outages in Mid-South Territory

are lightning related• 2011 and 2012 alone had 1000 outage

events attributed to lightning• Need for design improvement• Need for cost reduction (truck rolls and

man hours) during routine arrestor inspections and post-storm assessment

Objectives1. Analyze lightning strike data using GIS

2. Improve workflow for: – Lightning damage assessment– Lightning arrestor Inspection

3. Use GIS to improve line design based on lightning data analysis

Data and Methods• Software

– ArcGIS 9.3.1– Spatial Analyst– GeoEXT Lightning tool

• Data– Earth Networks and USPLN Network

lightning data– Outage data

Workflow• Web delivery of lightning data

• Lightning tool runs as a service on ArcSDE and does the following:

1. Grabs the data from Earth Networks2. Creates on the fly feature classes (strike

data, nearby lightning, recent lightning)3. Sends email notification and Google maps

link for strikes meeting certain criteria

Lightning Warning

Lightning data analysis1. Lightning stroke point data converted

to lightning density grids using Spatial Analyst

2. Density grid reclassified into Low, Medium, and High lightning zones

3. Strike zone grid converted to polygon4. Polygon incorporated into Partner

Staking Software for better line design

Inspection workflow• Email notifications have helped in:

1. Pinpointing where to send crews to inspect lightning arrestors (for routine maintenance)

2. Pinpointing where to send crews after a storm passes through to inspect possible lightning damage

3. The possibility to look back at lightning data to investigate outage causes

Lightning Outages

Discussion and Conclusion• Line design now incorporates lightning

data. – Intensify arrestor placement in medium and high risk

outage areas and vice-versa– *Compare 2013 lightning outages to 2012 data to

see the effectiveness of the intervention

• Lightning data can now be pushed to other systems within the enterprise for decision making

Discussion and Conclusion• Storing lightning data in geodatabase

has resulted in huge savings, no longer have to buy archive data

• More field productivity since crews know where to look for damage

Thank you

Contact Info:

Dr. Comfort ManyameMid-South Synergy7625 HWY 6Navasota TX 77868cmanyame@midsouthsynergy.com