An early fault detection (EFD) system designed at RMIT University is helping to prevent bushfires and blackouts in North America, Europe and Australia.

IND Technology, which has commercialised this innovation, is seeking funding from the federal government to assist with rolling out the EFD system across all single-wire earth return (SWER) networks around the country, about 200,000km of power lines, over the next ten years.

“The EFD system can detect and locate faults on a powerline before they happen. You can think of it like a smoke alarm for the power network,” RMIT lead researcher professor Alan Wong says.

“If you place enough sensors across the network, these sensors or alarm systems will send out an alert when it thinks there’s a certain risk in the network.”

With 2,500 units installed worldwide, the technology now monitors over 12,500km of powerlines and has prevented more than 750 failures and potentially saved lives. The technology covers up to 5km of power lines with two units.

Wong says the patented sensing method and data processing algorithm can even identify the precise location of expected faults down to a 10m section of a powerline and enable more proactive and cost-effective management of electricity network assets.

With the EFD system, network owners can monitor every network asset 24/7, including during extreme weather when asset failures are likely to first appear.