Duke Energy Florida’s Smart Grid Improves Power Response and Restoration for Customers During Hurricane Ian | duke energy

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  Smart Self-Repair Technology in Florida Helped Automatically Restore More Than 160,000 Customer Outages During a Powerful Storm

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – As Hurricane Ian swept through Florida, Duke Energy’s grid upgrades were already in place to help combat power outages caused by the storm.

Smart self-healing technology has helped automatically restore over 160,000 customer outages and saved nearly 3.3 million hours (nearly 200 million minutes) of total lost outage time.

“Hurricane Ian is a strong reminder of the importance of grid hardening and storm preparedness to help keep the lights on for our customers,” said Melissa Seixas, State President of Duke Energy in Florida. . “Self-healing technology is just one of many network enhancements Duke Energy is delivering to prevent outages, restore service faster, and increase reliability for our customers.”

Just like your car’s GPS can identify an upcoming accident and redirect you around the incident to keep you on your way, self-healing technology is like a GPS for the grid. The technology can quickly identify power outages and alternate power paths to restore service faster to customers in the event of an outage.

Additionally, self-healing technology provides a smart tool to help field crews restore power after a major storm like Ian’s, helping to reduce the impacts of outages and freeing up resources to help restore power. food in other places.

Three days after Hurricane Ian left the state, Duke Energy Florida completed restoring approximately 1 million customers. These advances allowed the company to deploy more than 550 Duke Energy workers from across Florida, along with contractors from across the country, to help restore power for Lee County Electric Cooperative customers.

Crews worked in Cape Coral and Pine Island, one of the areas hardest hit by the storm, and completed restoring power to the majority of Pine Island customers approximately a week after arriving on the island. .

Before Ian in 2022, smart self-healing technology had averted nearly 250,000 extended customer outages in Florida, saving an estimated 285,000 hours (17.1 million minutes) of total lost downtime.

Duke Energy currently serves approximately 59% of customers in Florida with self-repair capabilities on its main power distribution lines, with a goal of serving approximately 80% over the next few years.

Self-Healing Technology Video.

Animation video of the self-healing grid system.

Duke Energy Florida

Duke Energy Florida, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, has 10,300 megawatts of energy capacity, supplying electricity to 1.9 million residential, commercial and industrial customers over a 13,000 square mile service area in Florida.

Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), a Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, is one of the largest energy holding companies in the United States. Its electric utilities serve 8.2 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, and collectively possess 50,000 megawatts of power capacity. Its natural gas unit serves 1.6 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky. The company employs 28,000 people.

Duke Energy is executing an aggressive clean energy transition to meet its goals of net methane emissions from its natural gas business and at least 50% carbon reduction from power generation by 2030 and net emissions carbon emissions by 2050. Zero goals also include Scope 2 emissions and some Scope 3 emissions. zero-emission power generation such as hydrogen and advanced nuclear.

Duke Energy was named to Fortune’s 2022 “World’s Most Admired Companies” list and Forbes’ “America’s Top Employers” list. More information is available at duke-energy.com. The Duke Energy News Center contains press releases, fact sheets, photos and videos. Duke Energy lighting features stories about people, innovations, community issues and environmental issues. Follow Duke Energy on Twitter, LinkedIn, instagram and Facebook.

Media contact: Audrey Stasko
Media Line: 800.559.3853
Twitter: @DE_AudreyS