27 April 2023
Online
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.
Introduction
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:
01
Modernisation of grid assets in high-risk areas to minimise risk of faulty equipment causing an arc and potentially igniting vegetation.
02
Optimisation of grid maintenance and remote monitoring tools to detect and isolate risks from faulty equipment in the network.
03
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
Event Speakers
Joseph Lake
Director | UMS Group’s ‘International Wildfire Risk Mitigation Consortium’
Gave an overview of the issue, shared experiences from Australia & California and presented the various solution responses available
Maurizio Marini
Head of Digital Solutions – Innovation & Market Solutions from the Italian grid operator | Terna
Presented 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
Jose collaborates on the rePLANT project and presented “Decision Support Systems for the Management and Resilience of REN’s Gas and Electricity Infrastructure Facing the Risk of Forest Wildfire”.
Carlos Viegas
Invited Assistant Professor | University of Coimbra
Carlos collaborates on the rePLANT project and presented “Decision Support Systems for the Management and Resilience of REN’s Gas and Electricity Infrastructure Facing the Risk of Forest Wildfire”.
Rui Roda
Business Coordinator at software development provider | whereness
Rui collaborates on the rePLANT project and presented “Decision Support Systems for the Management and Resilience of REN’s Gas and Electricity Infrastructure Facing the Risk of Forest Wildfire”.
session Recording
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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.