An Australian invention that alerts utility providers of possible infrastructure faults is finding a home in electricity transmission systems around the world but is yet to capture the interest at its point of origin.
The Early Fault Detection (EFD) system developed by Alan Wong from RMIT University via his startup IND-Technology has seen rapid growth in the past year: 2,500 units installed across 12,500km of powerlines across the world.
That includes places like Los Angeles, San Diego, Portland and Pennsylvania in the US, and Alberta, Canada.
But in Australia it’s been harder for his product to get a foothold. Only a pilot program funded by the Victorian state government has seen the units deployed on Australian infrastructure. It’s surprising, given data shows electrical faults are likely responsible for 1 in 20 bushfires and potentially half during elevated fire danger.
“I’m very proud to say that we have prevented a lot of potential wildfires,” Wong tells Cosmos. He won’t say how many, owing to commercial confidentiality agreements, however he’s confident the system holds up.
He’s quick to emphasise the product is about early fault detection, like a cardiologist spotting an irregular heartbeat as a forewarning to future heart trouble. In the same way, the EFD installed on transmission poles every 5km, collects radio frequency signals travelling along power lines. This data is transmitted back to a server and is then automatically analysed by a computer system.
From there, a potential fault could be pinpointed to a 10m span of powerline, alerting service providers about the issue.
“It’s a real breakthrough,” Wong says. “It’s a bit mind-boggling to think that over a long distance you could detect it at all, let alone pinpoint it, and we have spent a lot of time working out how to do it.”
Big in the US, but not down under
While he points to new clients like Portland General Electric as “huge advocates” for his product, he’s surprised that a bushfire-prone country like Australia is yet to see value in early fault detection.
The 40-strong workforce in a Richmond-based industrial facility manufactures the product and distributes it globally.
But only through a pilot program funded by Victoria has the benefits been made visible closer to home. During that trial, the EFD identified a failing conductor at Porcupine Ridge, about 100km northwest of Melbourne.
That fault, on a segment of powerline above a property owned by farmer Michael Thorne, had the potential to snap loose.
“It would be pretty hard to spot a broken strand even if you were paying a reasonable amount of attention,” Thorne says.
“The risk is that the power line breaks, drops to the ground and starts a grass fire. Grass fires can move very quickly, faster than a bush fire typically because the wind’s not interrupted as it flows across the grass and the fire could have swept up to the house, through the sheds and then beyond to adjacent farms very rapidly.”
Once the potential fault was detected, the power company responsible was able to respond efficiently.
“The defect that we detected at Porcupine Ridge, we had been monitoring that for a while, the energy released from that location escalated day after day, just getting stronger and stronger,” Wong says.
“We just told the power company, ‘Hey, you have a problem there’, but we couldn’t wait, we just drove to Porcupine Ridge and between 5-10 minutes we found the broken conductor.
“We have found so many defects across the world: from Canada and Pennsylvania due to gunshot damage, and everyone is happy, the system is working.”
