Case Study

National Grid delivers tangible value with IVMS

AiDASH

 

About National Grid:

National Grid is a multinational utility with a large United States presence in New York and Massachusetts. In 2020 National Grid and AiDASH™ began a partnership to implement the Intelligent Vegetation Management System (IVMS) on its service area in Massachusetts which includes over 13,500 line miles and serves more than 1.3M customers. The goal was to transform their vegetation management operation and overcome obstacles that were preventing the organization from meeting its reliability goals.

___________________

  • Company: National Grid
  • Location: New York and Massachusetts
  • Solution: AiDASH Intelligent Vegetation Management System (IVMS)

___________________

The Problem: A pressing need to modernize operations.

Each year, National Grid faces very real vegetation management challenges. These challenges include maintaining reliability over a large and diverse service area and complying with strict regulations to prevent outages and manage fire risk. The company needed a better way to address these challenges head on – especially in the face of changing weather patterns and increasing storm and wildfire threats. So National Grid turned to technology to find that better way.

Key challenges included:
  • Increasing costs & budget constraints: Significant increases in costs for routine maintenance work meant National Grid had to find a way to work more efficiently and provide safe, reliable service without driving costs up for our customers.
  • Increased regulatory requirements: Standards for reliability are high and will be increasing in the coming years.
  • Lack of customer satisfaction: In its efforts to understand how customers felt about service delivery, National Grid found that they weren’t meeting a high enough standard and endeavored to improve.
  • Inadequate post trim results: In the year after pruning, the average circuit experienced an 8% reduction in customers interrupted, but saw no significant improvement in tree events, or customer minutes interrupted.

“We’re not doing significantly more or less miles than we were on a typical 5-year cycle. The huge difference is which circuits we’re doing at the right time,” ​

Ryan Moe

Lead Specialist – Vegetation Strategy, National Grid

___________________

Solution: Creating a long-term vision.

National Grid adopted AiDASH’s IVMS in 2021. The company has established a long-term vision to “provide Vegetation Management employees with data driven tools to enable optimized decisions for maintenance, while balancing cost and reliability to serve our customers growing demands efficiently.”

What they found in AiDASH was a way to unlock organizational efficiency they hadn’t seen before in their vegetation management practice. The satellite-first approach meant they could be better and faster in many aspects of the operation.

  • Satellite-first: Satellite technology has proven to be a better way to quickly see and understand vegetation conditions over an entire service area and use it as a foundation for building a plan.
  • Entire network vs. portion of network: Satellite imagery also means National Grid could look at large swaths of their network at once versus breaking the network into small pieces and tackling each on their own.
  • Change management: Strong adoption across teams – including teams in the field – created a single source of truth that ensured everyone is on the same page.
  • Speed & efficiency: With a more complete picture of the service area and a cross-functional platform, National Grid could be more surgical and move more efficiently in all aspects of their vegetation management operation.
___________________

Impact: Realizing meaningful value.

The implementation of AiDASH IVMS on the National Grid network led to real, tangible business outcomes on circuits maintained with IVMS that included:

  • From fixed-cycle to condition-based trimming: satellite imaging and analytics allowed National Grid to move away from the old cycle-based trim approach to a more efficient and productive condition-based approach.
  • Reduction in tree events: National Grid has seen a 30% decline in tree-related events, a 38% reduction in tree-related customers interrupted, and a 55% reduction in tree-related customer minutes interrupted in the year after circuits were pruned.
  • $1M in avoided cost – with technology removing the need for time consuming manual processes like field reviews to determine if a circuit needs to be pruned.
  • $2M in efficiencies realized – in the first few years of adopting IVMS. Some circuits were able to be deferred beyond standard five-year cycle.
  • Predictive analysis: Using IVMS, National Grid was able to understand variable cycle lengths for its entire network and get ahead of planning. The current breakdown is <1% of circuits on a 4-year cycle, 41% on a 5-year cycle, 45% on a 6-year cycle, and 14% on a 7-year cycle. Knowing these variable cycle lengths has made National Grid even more efficient about addressing each part of its network.
  • Adapting to a changing climate: IVMS has also allowed National Grid to gain a proactive understanding of changing weather patterns, increasing temperatures and subsequent changes in vegetation growth rates.

The collaborative partnership between National Grid and AiDASH has resulted in a positive transformation for National Grid’s vegetation management efforts. The partnership is ongoing as National Grid and AiDASH continue to work together to use a satellite-first approach to solving other, adjacent critical infrastructure challenges National Grid faces including those from increasing storms and wildfire danger.

___________________ 
DISCOVER MORE


About AiDASH
AiDASH is an AI-first vertical SaaS company on a mission to transform operations, maintenance, and sustainability in industries with geographically distributed assets by using satellites and AI at scale. With access to a continual, near-real-time stream of critical data, utilities, energy, transportation, water and wastewater, and other core industries can make more informed decisions and build optimized long-term plans, all while reducing costs, improving reliability, and achieving sustainability goals. To learn more about how AiDASH is helping core industries become more resilient, efficient, and sustainable, visit www.aidash.com.

AiDASH is the leader in Intelligent Vegetation Management

Ready to see it in action for yourself? 

Get a demo today.