Dominion Energy Virginia and data platform provider PingThings are expanding their collaboration to use artificial intelligence (AI) and high-volume sensor data to identify emerging equipment faults and help anticipate outages across Virginia and northeastern North Carolina.
Formalised through a Technology Acceleration Alliance, the initiative builds on a partnership that began in 2019. It aims to help engineers to analyse grid measurements collected at millisecond intervals alongside years of historical data, helping identify anomalies and potential failures before they lead to equipment outages.
The platform currently manages around five petabytes of sensor data from transmission lines, substations, transformers and other grid assets. The companies expect this volume to more than double over the next few years.
The system is intended to address a longstanding challenge for utilities: although sensors generate increasingly large amounts of operational data, storing, organising and analysing that information at scale has been difficult. The platform is designed to support a shift from reactive maintenance towards earlier detection of developing problems.
“The grid is growing faster than ever, and that makes understanding its overall health and performance even more important,” said Kevin Jones, director of strategic initiatives in Dominion Energy’s Electric Transmission division. He added that the technology enables the utility to apply AI to major industry challenges at a different scale.
PingThings chief executive Sean Murphy said the companies’ seven-year collaboration had generated operational experience that could help establish a model for other utilities.
Dominion Energy’s network in Virginia and northeastern North Carolina includes approximately 6,800 miles of transmission lines and 58,510 miles of distribution lines, serving 2.8 million customers.
