SDG&E's new weather center uses Drone data and AI to detect and track wildfires
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| Some of the situation awareness dashboard displayed in the Emergency Operations Center at SDG&E in San Diego on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (Hayne Palmour IV / For The San Diego Union-Tribune) |
SDG&E's new weather center uses AI to fight wildfires
Summary
SDG&E has opened a state-of-the-art Wildfire and Climate Resilience Center in Kearny Mesa, San Diego, representing part of their $6 billion investment in wildfire prevention since devastating fires in 2007. Key features include:
1. Advanced Technology
- - 222 weather stations measuring conditions every 10 minutes
- - Over 130 cameras streaming views of high-risk areas
- - AI and machine learning systems running 10 million virtual wildfire simulations daily
- - Uses 3.8 million drone images to train AI inspection models
- - Houses both weather forecasting and Emergency Operations Center
- - Team of six meteorologists monitoring conditions
- - Can run real-time wildfire simulations to assess risks and impacts
- - Manages Public Safety Power Shutoffs during high-risk conditions
- - About 45% of infrastructure placed underground
- - Partnerships with academic institutions including Scripps Institution of Oceanography
- - Serves as a learning center for other utilities (130+ have visited)
- - Includes educational facilities for students and community groups
The center represents SDG&E's effort to shift from reactive to proactive wildfire prevention, though some critics argue the billions spent could be better used on solutions like providing solar panels and battery storage to residents in high-risk areas. While San Diego has avoided catastrophic fires since 2007, the utility faces challenges balancing safety investments with already high electricity rates, which are currently the highest in the country at 41.9 cents per kilowatt-hour.
1. Weather Forecasting
- - Uses millions of historical weather data points since 2010 to train AI models
- - Developed one of the first AI-trained Santa Ana Wind Gust forecast models
- - Can make over 200 machine learning-point forecasts throughout the county to assess threat levels
- - Helps predict severity of incoming weather threats, particularly Santa Ana winds
- - Runs over 10 million virtual wildfire simulations daily
- - Uses these simulations to inform operational wildfire risk models
- - Can analyze potential impacts including identifying threatened structures and populations
- - Helps with decision-making about Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS)
- - Processes over 3.8 million drone images of company infrastructure
- - Uses AI to train inspection models
- - Helps monitor and assess the condition of power lines and equipment
- - Combines AI with institutional knowledge and data for risk analysis
- - Assesses both near and long-term risks
- - Helps enable cost-efficient decision-making to reduce risks at lower costs for customers
- - Contributes to improved energy affordability through smarter resource allocation
The articles suggest that this AI integration, combined with real-time monitoring and weather data, has helped SDG&E better manage wildfire risks. For example, during recent Santa Ana winds, the technology helped them coordinate more efficient power restoration and limit the scope of necessary power shutoffs.
Since wildfires in 2007 ravaged parts of San Diego County, San Diego Gas & Electric has made a concerted effort to reduce the risk of another wave of deadly fires — and the utility has spent about $6 billion in ratepayer funds in the process.
A chunk of that money went to establishing a state-of-the art meteorology network and SDG&E recently opened a Wildfire and Climate Resilience Center at its headquarters in Kearny Mesa.
The more than 16,000-square-foot facility houses both SDG&E’s weather forecasting and Emergency Operations Center under a single roof. Designed as a hub to monitor and mitigate the effects of extreme weather events, the site also acts a meeting place for officials from other power companies to visit and compare notes — and for community groups and schools to tour.
“We’ve taken everything that comes into our resilience as an organization — the ability to see any event coming, the ability to prepare and train the organization, the ability to react and guide our recovery,” said Brian D’Agostino, meteorologist and SDG&E’s vice president of wildfire and climate science. “Everybody who does that was brought together under me in this space.”
High winds and dry conditions in the fall of 2007 led to the Witch Creek, Guejito and Rice wildfires that destroyed more than 1,300 homes, killed two people, injured 40 firefighters and forced more than 10,000 to seek shelter at Qualcomm Stadium. One of the fires was caused by a tree limb that fell onto an SDG&E power line.
Since then, SDG&E created its weather network that includes 222 stations that measure wind speed, temperatures and humidity every 10 minutes. D’Agostino heads a team of six meteorologists that monitor more than 130 cameras that stream views of high-fire risk areas.
A tour of the Wildfire and Climate Resilience Center showed off the high-tech aspects of the utility’s strategy to reduce wildfire risks, including using artificial intelligence and machine learning.
SDG&E’s Vice President of Wildfire and Climate Science, Brian D’Agostino speaks while next to a display showing a San Diego County wildfire history timeline while in the Emergency Operations Center at SDG&E in San Diego on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (Hayne Palmour IV / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
D’Agostino conducted a wildfire simulation Tuesday in front of a giant computer screen showing the footprint of a potential wildfire starting around Alpine.
“We can open this impact analysis table,” he said, touching a tab on the monitor, “and we start to say, OK, where are the people, where are the structures and buildings that are within that footprint? Then you start doing a lot of the analysis” on what strategies that SDG&E and emergency crews can take.
All that data-crunching was used last week when Santa Ana winds blew through the region. Combined with low humidity levels of around 10%, gusts of about 50 mph in some backcountry communities prompted D’Agostino to implement what’s called Public Safety Power Shutoffs that resulted in 1,263 SDG&E customers having their electricity preemptively cut off.
“It’s not an easy decision to make,” D’Agostino said.
Also known as PSPS, the practice is used by investor-owned utilities in California to de-energize circuits in targeted areas when high winds and dry conditions elevate the risk of power lines falling and potentially igniting a wildfire.
“We can do over 200 machine learning-point forecasts throughout the county to understand the severity of an incoming threat, namely Santa Anas,” said Chris Arends, meteorology program manager at SDG&E. “It stops raining (in the San Diego area) in April. We dry out all year long and then the Santa Anas show up like a blow-dryer on the landscape.”
Red flag warnings issued by the National Weather Service were in effect for three days last week but power outages were confined to two days, with SDG&E officials saying the advanced technology helped them coordinate with work crews to get power restored at a faster rate.
Last week marked the first time in three years that SDG&E has had to initiate PSPS but it looks like another round of Santa Ana winds may blow through next week.
“It’s too early to tell,” D’Agostino said. “But such a big part of our center is analyzing that risk, working with fire agencies and working with the National Weather Service. Our meteorology team is already coordinating across the region on next week’s event.”
To help reduce potential wildfires, SDG&E has placed about 45% of its infrastructure underground. But doing so is expensive, and soaring utility bills have generated an increasing number of complaints from SDG&E customers.
According to the most recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, San Diego had the highest price for electricity in the country in October, averaging 41.9 cents per kilowatt-hour.
SDG&E placed about 70 miles of power lines underground last year and wants to do a lot more in the next seven years.
But the California Public Utilities Commission appears to be balking.
In a proposed decision regarding what rates SDG&E can charge its 3.7 million customers from 2024 through 2027, the regulator is looking at a less expensive option — having SDG&E underground just 35 miles of power lines per year, while wrapping above-ground lines with covered conductor at a rate of 100 miles per year.
SDG&E argues that placing the lines underground is more cost-effective for customers in the long run because it’s safer and has lobbied the commission to change the proposed decision. A vote is scheduled for next month.
But even looking from a big picture perspective, $6 billion of ratepayer dollars spent since 2007 is a lot of money.
Bill Powers, a frequent SDG&E critic, said, “I don’t have much of a comment” about the Wildfire and Climate Resilience Center but focused his critique on SDG&E’s wildfire spending priorities.
A board member of The Protect Our Communities Foundation, a local environmental and consumer group, Powers said, for example, the utility should spend money to equip the roughly 31,000 residents living in extreme high fire threat areas (also known as Tier 3) with solar panels plus battery storage.
“Beef up those batteries and make sure (customers in the backcountry) have enough battery support so that they can last 24 or 48 hours on batteries” during a Public Safety Power Shutoff, said Powers.
Instead, “the whole direction of the program has been to maximize shareholder benefits and maximize new investment and steel in the ground infrastructure,” Powers said.
SDG&E’s wildfire prevention efforts have not completely eliminated fires since 2007. The Lilac Fire in December 2017 that ignited near Bonsall destroyed 157 structures. But the San Diego area has experienced no catastrophic fires in the past 17 years.
That’s quite different than other parts of the state, such as the 2017 Thomas Fire in Southern California Edison’s service territory that destroyed 1,063 structures and killed one resident and one firefighter.
Pacific Gas & Electric has been faulted for multiple fires in recent years, including the Zogg Fire in 2020 that killed four, the Dixie Fire in 2021 that cost $637.4 million to suppress and the devastating Camp Fire in 2018 that killed 85.
SDG&E’s spending since 2007 “is about doing everything in our power to avoid power lines from causing wildfires,” D’Agostino said.
More than 130 utilities have visited the Wildfire and Climate Resilience Center since it opened in April. The roster included power companies outside the U.S., including one from Chile.
A series of wildfires in Chile, fueled by 15 years of drought, killed more than 130 people in February of this year.
Originally Published:
SDG&E Advances Climate Preparedness with Launch of State-of-the-Art Wildfire and Climate Resilience Center | Sempra
PRNewswire/ -- As the operating environment for utilities becomes more challenging, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) is stepping up to lead the energy sector in climate preparedness. The company has unveiled its updated cutting-edge Wildfire and Climate Resilience Center, innovating in wildfire mitigation and grid safety.
SDG&E's new Wildfire and Climate Resilience Center is the latest innovation in the company's commitment to building an electrical grid designed to withstand the intensifying effects of climate change. One of the most technologically advanced in the industry, the Center serves as a hub for research, development and implementation of innovative solutions by bringing AI and predictive modeling together with shared technology and intelligence with emergency responders to help enable a swift and integrated response to regional threats. The combination of extensive data and advanced modeling also contributes to improved energy affordability by enabling cost-efficient decision-making that helps reduce risk at a lower cost for customers.
"Our commitment goes beyond reacting to climate challenges. We are focused on anticipating and preparing for them," said Caroline Winn, SDG&E's Chief Executive Officer. "By leveraging strategic investments, collaborations and community engagement, SDG&E is building the industry leading platform to support a more sustainable, resilient energy grid that is better prepared to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow."
The Wildfire and Climate Resilience Center also serves as SDG&E's new Emergency Operations Center, a critical hub during extreme weather events and major disasters. Equipped with advanced communication and coordination tools, the center is designed to enhance safety for employees and the public.
The company's Wildfire and Climate Resilience Center is a centralized focal point of SDG&E's climate resilience strategy:
- Advanced weather monitoring: SDG&E operates one of the nation's most sophisticated weather forecasting networks, offering real-time data to better anticipate and address weather-related threats. The company's systems use millions of historical weather data points going back to 2010 to assist in training AI-based wind forecasting models, including one of the first AI-trained Santa Ana Wind Gust forecast models in the industry.
- AI and machine learning: These cutting-edge technologies can help predict and mitigate wildfire impacts on the energy grid. For example, SDG&E conducts more than 10 million virtual wildfire simulations daily to inform operational wildfire risk models, and uses more than 3.8 million drone images of company infrastructure to train AI-based inspection models.
- Partnerships with academia: SDG&E partners with leading academic institutions such as Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, San Jose State University, San Diego Supercomputer Center and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center to develop weather products to better anticipate extreme events, visualize and share weather and fuel moisture data, analyze fire potential and detect wildfires using real-time satellite data.
- Community collaboration: SDG&E works closely with local communities and stakeholders to achieve more inclusive and effective climate resilience efforts.
- Fire-resistant infrastructure: The company continues to invest in fire-hardened systems, including undergrounding, steel poles, and vegetation management, that aim to reduce wildfire risk.
- Workforce training: Extensive training programs are equipping SDG&E's workforce to manage and maintain a resilient grid.
Beyond immediate operations, the Wildfire and Climate Resilient Center plays a vital role in inspiring future energy professionals, advancing wildfire and climate science, and engaging local youth in climate resilience education through a new Resilience Zone. This fun and engaging learning center includes three climate science labs, and a series of interactive exhibits designed to educate young students and partner with academia to advance and share wildfire and climate science as it relates to the energy grid.
To learn more about SDG&E's wildfire safety initiatives, visit sdge.com/wildfire-safety.
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