The Electro Optic Voltage Sensor System can measure an electric field without actually touching it.

Detecting Power Failures—€”Fast

August / September 2007 By: Michelle Blacker Volume 5 Number 4

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Last June, residents of Manhattan and the Bronx experienced a brief power outage due to a storm system blowing through. Several traffic lights were knocked out and subway services were cut by the outage, which affected approximately 385,000 people.

According to OptiSense Network, a privately held company in Bridgeport, Texas, a technology called Electro Optic Voltage Sensor System can measure an electric field without actually touching it, allowing utilities to detect and locate a power failure before customers call to report it. So in the case of the New York event, a system like the one created by OptiSense would have enabled utilities to know where the power outage occurred before anybody actually called.

"When your electricity goes out today, you have to call them up and tell them the lights are out. We're proposing each company monitor its grid, so they can see where they have a power failure before you call," says co-founder and president, David Welch.

Licensed to OptiSense in 2001, the sensors developed at the Idaho National Laboratory are capable of distribution measurements of voltages from 15,000 to 69,000 and offer numerous benefits including increased safety, capacity, security, reliability, productivity, lowered cost and environmentally friendly characteristics. The company's technology will enable utility companies to monitor feeder circuits more cost effectively, enhance system operations, optimize power flows, and provide greater grid security and reliability. The sensors are smaller and lighter in weight compared to existing equipment and the high-voltage sensors will also allow placement in locations where the existing measurement would be impossible to install. The sensors use an optical crystal that measures the phase shift of polarized light in proportion to the strength of the applied electric field. However, the sensor system does not require direct electrical contact with energized conductors and is compact, reliable, and operates in a variety of temperatures and conditions.

Recently, OptiSense received feedback from two major utilities that the sensors' reduction of capital expenditure costs and real-time monitoring of the distribution grid translate into 2 percent annual capital expenditure savings.
OptiSense has also sold units to Alabama Power, a field test trial customer of the product. Sales projections suggest that OptiSense has the potential to contribute more than $80 million per year to the Texas economy. But OptiSense hopes to target a bigger audience: utilities that operate within voltages of 15 to 100 kilovolts, which works out to be about 99 percent of utility companies.

Among other successes, OptiSense recently received $1.5 million from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund (ETF), which will allow the company to further develop the sensor system. Along with five technology companies and schools, Optisense, shared more than $13 million in state grants. The ETF, created by the Texas legislature, is used to expedite the development and commercialization of specific technologies.

Michelle Blacker is a communications specialist at Idaho National Laboratory.