TECHNOLOGY/BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY Identifying Arcing Hazards in Power Distribution Systems

Opportunity:

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), operated by the Lawrence Livermore National Security (LLNS), LLC under contract no. DE-AC52-07NA27344 (Contract 44) with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is offering the opportunity to enter into a collaboration to further develop and commercialize its Identifying Arcing Hazards in Power Distribution Systems.

Background:

The intensity and frequency of wildfires have increased rapidly in recent years in the US, particularly the Western states and other parts of the world. There is an increasing need for addressing the risk of wildfires initiated by faults in electrical equipment used in the power distribution system. Arcing faults can potentially create dangerous conditions such as sparks or manifest deteriorating equipment condition that potentially cause larger issues such as outages to the customers. Arcing faults are not well understood and consequently are difficult to identify with existing equipment.

Description:

High-resolution, high-fidelity sensor measurements can be used to detect unique signatures of electric power grid equipment malfunction and anomalies such as arcing faults that can potentially cause outages and wildfires. This LLNL invention proposes an unsupervised approach to detect arcing fault anomalies using a reduced dimensional gradient-based filtering algorithm followed by a similarity-based clustering algorithm. This approach would help identify events that are not related to arcing, such as normal voltage regulation events. Furthermore, the LLNL researchers propose a classifier-based approach to identify and validate an arcing event from the pool of potential arcing events.

Advantages/Benefits: 

• Can identify anomalies from high-resolution sub-cycle measurements to detect arcing signatures in power distribution systems.
• Measurements can be obtained from a distribution substation using two types of devices: phasor and waveform, or point-on-wave (POW) sensors.
• Does not require defining detection threshold parameters as required by current anomaly detection approaches.

Potential Applications: 

• electric power delivery systems offered by electric utilities and their equipment suppliers

Development Status: 

Current stage of technology development: TRL ☒ 0-2     ☐ 3-5     ☐ 5-9

LLNL has filed for patent protection on this invention.

U.S. Patent Application No. 20230059561 IDENTIFICATION OF ARCING HAZARDS IN POWER DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS published 2/23/2023

LLNL is seeking industry partners with a demonstrated ability to bring such inventions to the market. Moving critical technology beyond the Laboratory to the commercial world helps our licensees gain a competitive edge in the marketplace. All licensing activities are conducted under policies relating to the strict nondisclosure of company proprietary information. 

Please visit the IPO website at https://ipo.llnl.gov/resources for more information on working with LLNL and the industrial partnering and technology transfer process.

Note:  THIS IS NOT A PROCUREMENT.  Companies interested in commercializing LLNL's Identifying Arcing Hazards in Power Distribution Systems should provide an electronic OR written statement of interest, which includes the following:

1. Company Name and address.
2. The name, address, and telephone number of a point of contact.
3. A description of corporate expertise and/or facilities relevant to commercializing this technology.

Please provide a complete electronic OR written statement to ensure consideration of your interest in LLNL's Identifying Arcing Hazards in Power Distribution Systems.

The subject heading in an email response should include the Notice ID and/or the title of LLNL’s Technology/Business Opportunity and directed to the Primary and Secondary Point of Contacts listed below.

Written responses should be directed to:

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Innovation and Partnerships Office

P.O. Box 808, L-779

Livermore, CA  94551-0808

Attention: IL-13681