Category three – Best solution to an identified electrical safety issue
The supply of electricity in Australia is often taken for granted as safe and reliable. However, due to the design of our power system, it is possible for issues to emerge which create unsafe conditions for consumers. Failures of the neutral conductor present a significant health risk to the public as well as to service personnel working on a property. A collaboration agreement was signed between Luceo Energy and Energy Queensland in 2016 with a view to solving the problem of providing early identification of neutral integrity faults. The parties developed the Luceo Low Voltage monitoring device to help electricity distributors manage consumer-owned devices across low voltage networks.
This state-of-the-art cloud solution was developed to process real-time data from the new meters, along with historical data from smart meters and transformer monitors to take advantage of existing data sources. By considering both instantaneous and historical time-series data, the algorithm can detect breaks in the neutral cable and degradation of the connection. The algorithm then calculates scores for the likelihood of different physical problems which may occur on the site, and if required, notifies the operators in real-time of the event. The operator can then review the event and confirm the analysis before issuing a service call to the site.
The Luceo Low Voltage monitoring device and platform with Neutral Integrity services came online in August 2020 and has been operating continually since then. In the last year, the system has successfully detected and alerted operators of over 150 faults. The successful detections to date represent about .075 per cent of devices in the monitored areas being affected by a potentially life-threatening situation.
