Faced with a scenario of worsening drought in the country, State Grid Brazil has created new strategies to avoid the unavailability of transmission systems
The dry season is generally critical for power transmission companies. Wildfires in areas intersected by transmission lines, often located in sparsely populated regions, can affect infrastructure and cause power outages. Therefore, as drought worsens, prevention efforts are often intensified. This year, the need to ensure supply was even greater due to the current water crisis, which required greater system availability, increasing pressure on them. Furthermore, the significant digitalization of activities that affected all sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic also changed the way State Grid Brazil Holding's Forest Fire Prevention Program works.
One of the first measures was to seek innovation in remote monitoring of fire outbreaks and in predicting incidents that could lead to transmission outages. Using INPE's BDQueimadas database and geoprocessing tools, images of fires recorded over the last 48 hours are evaluated in areas within a 1km radius of transmission lines. The data is then made available to the company's Operations Center, which can then alert local teams at substations, who assess the situation and take appropriate action.
"With the geoprocessing system, we can better plan our actions so that any damage that occurs can be repaired as quickly as possible. Although we don't yet have official, consolidated results, over the past few months we've seen good results even during a severe drought," says Ricardo Felix, Director of Health, Safety, and Environment at SGBH.
In addition to monitoring, given the restrictions on in-person activities imposed by the pandemic, communication with communities living near transmission lines also needed to be revamped. New digital tools were deployed, and social media communication was expanded. State Grid Brazil has just launched a new website to provide transparency on the topic and facilitate this communication, and has also initiated engagement initiatives with this audience through instant messaging apps.
A close relationship with these communities is essential to ensure that outbreaks can be controlled before they reach structures, where, until now, this was primarily done through local radio stations and door-to-door outreach. Other online environmental education initiatives are carried out in these communities. These and other initiatives by State Grid Brazil Holding aim to guarantee energy supply and environmental preservation, offering top-quality power transmission systems to all Brazilians.
