Under normal operating conditions, DSOs have the responsibility of maintaining power quality for individual grid customers in terms of voltage level, form of the signal, symmetry and frequency. With regard to this, the 10-minute average voltage values recorded by smart meters can support, for instance, the detection of failures, the identification of grid topology information, and the determination of switch states. To take advantage of this, Netz Niederösterreich (Netz-NÖ) launched the PQsmart project during the early stage of their smart meter rollout.
The PQsmart tool, now an integral part of Netz-NÖ’s grid operations management, can conduct remote fault diagnosis and support the initiation of required field actions. Furthermore, by enriching smart meter data with metadata from other grid equipment, Netz-NÖ can analyse the topology of its low voltage grid and perform load flow calculations. As the next step, machine learning models will be integrated to classify detected faults.
