In today's wildfire environment, electric utilities have the important task of balancing service reliability and safety. That's why Liberty has implemented sensitive relay profiles (SRP) across its system. SRPs provide utilities with information that helps it determine when it should shut off power, such as when a line or circuit fault is detected. This aids in reducing the potential for fires ignited by electrical infrastructure.
SRPs have three modes. These three modes allow Liberty to respond dynamically in situations when conditions change so that Liberty can continue to provide safe, reliable electricity to its customers.
- Normal mode – the setting can automatically detect, deenergize, and restore power for most fault conditions.
- Fire season mode – typically enabled during the summer/fall months, when the risk of wildfire is higher, this setting may result in longer outages as auto-restoration is disabled.
- Extreme fire mode – this setting permits Liberty to shut off power within one-tenth of a second for faulted conditions.
If the power goes out during fire season mode or extreme fire mode, Liberty will patrol along the circuits of the affected area(s) to confirm that there is no damage or safety hazards to the infrastructure, before power will be restored.
Safety is always a priority for Liberty, and SRP is a tool that Liberty proudly utilizes to continue to safely serve and protect its communities.