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Webinar

Webinar: Fire watch - How can the grid help prevent wildfires?

The sixth Webinar of the 'Energy & Nature' series investigated how proactive management of electricity grid assets, new technologies, and collaboration can help to prevent wildfires.

In a warming world, where recent years have seen unprecedented heat waves and droughts across Europe, the need for resilience of critical infrastructure against extreme weather events, especially wildfires, is growing. While this topic has immediate urgency for those in fire-prone areas, climate adaptation is crucial for system stability and security, even at more Northern latitudes.

Thankfully, mitigation measures are available, and many solutions are in development. These include:

  • Modernisation of grid assets in high-risk areas to minimise risk of faulty equipment causing an arc and potentially igniting vegetation.
  • Optimisation of grid maintenance and remote monitoring tools to detect and isolate risks from faulty equipment in the network.
  • Innovation in vegetation management to remove potential sources of ‘fuel’ and trees which could fall onto the line, thus also creating ‘fire breaks’ in the landscape.

The sixth webinar in our 'Energy & Nature' series explores how different approaches, technologies and proactive management techniques reduce risk of wildfire ignition and make the grid an asset for the early detection and prevention of wildfires.

The expert speakers joining the webinar are:

  • Joseph Lake – Director of the UMS Group’s ‘International Wildfire Risk Mitigation Consortium’ – giving an overview of the issue, sharing experiences from Australia & California and presenting the various solution responses available;
  • Maurizio Marini – Head of Digital Solutions – Innovation & Market Solutions from the Italian grid operator, Terna, presenting their work on a monitoring system for power lines to increase electrical system resilience in response to climate change.
  • Jose Moreira, Senior Expert Asset Management from Portuguese grid operator, REN; Carlos Viegas, Invited Assistant Professor, University of Coimbra; and Rui Roda, Business Coordinator at software development provider, whereness. These colleagues collaborate on the rePLANT project and will present "Decision Support Systems for the Management and Resilience of REN's Gas and Electricity Infrastructure Facing the Risk of Forest Wildfire".

After the presentations, we held an open Q&A round for 30 minutes. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Liam Innis, Manager – Energy Ecosystems.

Webinar recording

Webinar presentations

Joseph Lake, Director of the International International Wildfire Risk Mitigation Consortium | UMS Group

 

Jose Moreira, REN; Carlos Viegas, University of Coimbra; Rui Roda, whereness

Contact

Liam Innis
Manager - Energy Ecosystems

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+49 30 2332 11032
liam[at]renewables-grid.eu

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU or LIFE Programme. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

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RGI gratefully acknowledges the EU LIFE funding support:

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Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the LIFE Programme. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.