When storm Alfrida wreaked havoc, Trimble’s solution put an end to outages
CUSTOMER CASE: Ålands Elandelslag
SOLUTION: Trimble Solution for outage management
When the storm Alfrida hit the island of Åland, winter winds had barely swept away the powder smoke left in the air by New Year’s fireworks. On Wednesday, January 2, 2019, gusty winds of 40 meters per second caused lots of trees to fall on power lines. Soon, 14,000 people, half the population, were without electricity.
– It was a fast-paced start to the new year and the following three months, says Jan Lindgrén, Electricity Network Manager at an electric utility Åland's Elandelslag.
Outage information in real-time
Jan Lindgren has worked at Ålands Elandelslag since 1980. The utility has been using Trimble solutions for its daily operations since 1996.
- Here in Åland, the weather gets really windy every five years and we still experience relatively few power outages. But Alfrida was a 50-year storm, says Jan Lindgrén.
Åland's Elandelslag uses Trimble DMS as its distribution management system. It is a fully automated system that increases situational awareness during outages. For example, when trees blow over and fall on power lines, signals from triggered switches go to the system and visualize the outages on the computer screen. The solution also provides detailed real-time information on ongoing outages and repairs.
- Trimble’s solution has been of great benefit to us over the years. No one is longing for the time when we used needles on a map, says Jan Lindgrén.
Hectic days
Jan Lindgrén had to call in field crews from Sweden and Finland:
- That storm hit the forest with incredible force. After the storm had passed around nine in the morning of January 2, we still had no idea what it looked like out there. Usually we have around 20 electricians in place, now we had a field crew of 120 electricians, he says.
- Thanks to the Trimble solution, we were able to quickly send field crews to repair damage in the most important areas.
Repair and advice
During the storm, around 6,000 fault reports were registered and handled.
- We did temporary repairs and people got the power back. Cleaning after Alfrida has been tough, but I have had great support from my contacts in Trimble’s Swedish user community. There have been plenty of good people to ask for advice, says Jan Lindgrén.
There is an online outage map on the Åland Elandelslag website where electricity consumers can follow real-time outage situation and power restoration. The information is updated automatically from Trimble DMS.
- Our online outage map crashed during the storm, I think we had 120,000 clicks in the first day. Then we put the outage map on an external server that could handle the traffic, says Jan Lindgrén
