Predicting Power Outages from Wet Snow and Ice Storms to Improve Grid Reliability

This presentation will highlight applied research aiming to bridge the research-business practice divide in order to improve grid reliability during the cold season. This work focuses on three areas. One, the methods used to determine accretion of wet snow and freezing rain icing and their application to NWP data. Two, improving observations of wet snow and freezing rain icing to verify predictions. Three, relating wet snow and freezing rain icing loading to damage densities in a heavily deciduous-forested climate to understand storm signatures. Results from these three areas are being used to develop a probabilistic system to predict power outages ahead of snow and ice storms. This project is being conducted working closely with several Vermont electric distribution and transmission utilities to develop new technology that improves storm management decision making.