Horizon Networks Trialing Groundbreaking AI Technology

Horizon Networks will be participating in a twelve month trial using 'gridADAPT' to analyse how their network would cope with increasingly severe weather in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

The tool, developed by United States company Rhizome, will analyse climate projections and infrastructure data to help the company prepare for storms, flooding and other extreme events.

Rhizome said it is deploying gridADAPT across 25,000 homes and businesses in the Eastern Bay of Plenty to strengthen grid resilience across more than 8,000 square kilometres of infrastructure.

"Research from NIWA confirms that the Eastern Bay of Plenty will continue to experience increasingly severe weather driven by climate change, putting pressure on grid infrastructure that was never designed to withstand these conditions," it said. 

Rhizome co-founder and CEO Mishal Thadani said the partnership puts Horizon Networks "one step ahead of those impacts, keeping the lights on for their customers.”

General Manager of Horizon Networks Feng Wu said Horizon Energy is the first company in Australasia to use the tool, which is "really exciting".

The technology will help the company plan ahead and respond to potential weakness in its network.  

The planning tool will take "all the key data that we currently hold, including the climate projection... our asset condition data, our historic altitude data, and historic failure data," he said. 

The data will be collated to identify patterns and impacts from particular weather events, providing multiple solutions and cos- effective options.

For planning engineers, it means "they've got a tool they can play with and when they can actually use their data... and actually turn it into something tangible, it's really exciting work for our young engineers in our organisation."

The need for this technology is increasing Wu said, particularly in the Eastern Bay. 

"People would have appreciated the weather events we have had over the last few years across the country."

"One thing we're really trying to get clear on is if there's a weather event passing through, how will our network handle it under different weather events, windstorms or flooding or the rest of it, over time."

While customers have not yet been impacted by power outages during events, does not mean it will not happen, Wu said.

The project provides the company with an opportunity to be "more focused on long-term planning to foresee what might be coming to us and what we can do about it," he said. 

The results will also help facilitate "informed discussion with communities who might be affected in terms of what they can do as well to improve the resilience," according to Wu. 

Non-electric solutions such as solar power could become more frequent for areas likely to experience longer outages.

For isolated communities it will give residents "a bit more informed understanding of what is the risk exposure, saying that this particular part of the network might be more vulnerable to a wind event, storm event or flooding event."

Alongside gridADAPT research, understanding consumer behaviour during adverse weather will help inform what resilience is needed Wu said. 

"Having electricity interruption is one thing, the more important thing is how people can cope with it?" he said. 

A biannual consumer survey will support gridADAPT findings. 

Easy ways to prepare for power outages before weather events include having water, torches and a barbeque with a full gas bottle Wu said. 

At the end of the twelve month trial, Horizon Networks will look at how results could be applied across the country. 

"We don't know exactly what is going to actually come out the other end after we've finished the project, but if everything goes well, we're going to be going out and start sharing our learnings with other network companies through different forums so that we can all learn together and maybe adopt a similar tool where we can collaborate together." 

If the trial goes well, Horizon may consider extending usage of the tool.