How new technology is keeping the power on in NC during major storms

Yahoo

2 days ago

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — With hurricane season now underway, Duke Energy is confident they are more prepared than ever to handle incoming storms.
For more than two decades, Anthony Gibbs has worked to keep the power on at homes across the state. He's a senior distribution operator at Duke Energy's power distribution control center and is known there as the 'mayor'.
'You can come in on a sunny day and say, you know, hey, I'm going to sit back and nothing's going to happen. And then the whole world explodes. Thunderstorms come through in the evening,' Gibbs said about his daily work.
Information put into online outage maps and information that crews receive in the field comes from the control center. Customers calling in with power issues could very well be speaking with someone in the facility.
Gibbs is always ready when a major storm hits.
'You may get a chance to eat and you may not, but you come in, you know you're going to do 12 hours and we know you got to get the power back on as soon as possible,' Gibbs said.
Advancements like self-healing technology are helping his team do that. You can think of it as a GPS for the power grid. It can automatically detect an issue with power and then find a new route for that power in under a minute.
Duke Energy spokesperson Jeff Brooks says this system doesn't take a fallen tree off a line but it can significantly cut down response times. In 2024, it saved more than 1 million customers from a power outage.
'The benefit of the technology is it gives us a new, real-time blueprint of our electric grid so that we can see at any one point in time what's going on, on the system. And after a major storm, that blueprint is essential to help rebuild the system,' Brooks said.
This—paired with other technology—is helping Duke Energy be more prepared for a storm than ever before.
'We have advanced damage modeling systems that can tell us we need to shift resources and crews to these different locations. And this facility is pivotal on any day of the week,' Brooks said.
As we move into the future, technology is only expected to advance further. Some of those advancements may be using drones to get images back faster or using satellite imagery to be able to help assess damage.
Hurricane Helene showed the importance of merging human hands with computer technology.
'For us, the lessons and experiences we had in Helene have absolutely driven improvements and opportunities to continue to make our response better. And when we think about this hurricane season, we know that eventually we are going to see storms on the coast. We will see more storms in the mountains. So we have to be ready in every county that we serve and drill and practice and get our crews ready and make sure we have the inventories on hand to be able to supply thousands of poles,' Brooks said.
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