2026 Event Schedule

All utilities want a grid that is fully resilient, safe for communities, and operating optimally for all ratepayers. But how do we get there? 

This expert panel discussion will address the critical operational challenge facing utilities today as told by three major utilities: Pacific Gas and Electric, Puget Sound Energy and Xcel Energy.

A key aspect of creating a more resilient, reliable, and safer grid is by reducing what is called Hazard Awareness Delay—the gap between when grid hazards occur and when a utility can locate and address them. This remains a fundamental vulnerability in traditional grid monitoring: hazards can persist undetected for hours or days, escalating from manageable incidents to catastrophic failures.

This presentation will discuss Active Grid Response (AGR), which establishes an entirely new category of grid management that mitigates Hazard Awareness Delay by tracking and measuring the physical environment around the grid, and not just the current and voltage in the line. 

AGR has empowered PG&E, Xcel Energy, and Puget Sound Energy, respectively, to measure physical, electrical, and environmental factors through sensors deployed directly at utility poles, understand these signals at the edge and network level, and act on them to improve safety and reduce outages. 

Emerging solutions in this category must deliver continuous, real-time pole-to-pole visibility and uninterrupted monitoring during outages, enabling immediate hazard detection, precise fault localization, and detailed condition identification—capabilities that transform how utilities shorten outages, reduce outage frequency, and improve safety.

PG&E: Detecting HIFs - presented by panelist Karen McKelvie and moderator Jay Leyno. Prior to implementing AGR, PG&E faced a significant challenge in detecting high-impedance faults (HIFs). Traditional relays and breakers are not designed to detect the subtle and erratic current signatures of HIFs, leaving a critical blind spot. An oak tree cracked in a remote area of Northern California that subsequently fell into an energized 21 kV line. The branch remained on the line, smoldering during several days of red-flag warnings and temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. With AGR, the initial impact and line displacement were picked up in real-time, before the tree had a chance to carbonize and cause an electrical fault, outage, or possible wildfire ignition. PG&E was able to dispatch a troubleman, where in darkness, he was able to quickly spot the issue, de-energize the line, and remove the tree.

Puget Sound Energy (PSE): Restoring Power Quickly After a Storm - presented by Alex Brotherson> Puget Sound Energy faced a significant challenge in maintaining observability of de-energized circuits during major storm events. When lines go down or are preemptively de-energized for safety measures, conventional monitoring tools offer no visibility or understanding of real-time grid conditions. A lack of situational awareness hampered PSE’s ability to quickly assess damage, prioritize field response, and safely restore service, especially in remote or heavily forested areas. However, with AGR, Puget Sound Electricity can now observe de-energized lines, enabling the utility to reduce outage durations, coordinate safe restoration efforts, and build a more resilient grid. In 2024, a bomb cyclone struck the Pacific Northwest, battering PSE’s service territory with hurricane-force winds. Trees fell on power lines, homes, and businesses, causing nearly half a million customer outages. 

Puget Sound Energy would typically need to wait until the storm subsided to identify issues. But with AGR, PSE was able to measure and understand events on de-energized infrastructure in real-time. This enabled them to remotely triage and prioritize repairs during the storm, greatly enhancing the speed of restoration and the system's overall resiliency.

Xcel Energy: Averting a Wildfire - presented by Tyler McGrath
As a major utility serving a unique mix of urban and rural areas, Xcel's transmission and distribution lines are often situated near dry vegetation and across mountainous regions—conditions that heighten the risk of utility-related ignitions.

Then in March, 45 mph wind gusts caused multiple adjacent poles to structurally fail. The only thing holding them up was the primary lines, which remained energized. 
Xcel had multi-sensing devices deployed on the circuit to provide AGR, and the structural failure was detected through physical and environmental sensing, including vibrations, acoustics, acceleration, and pole tilt—allowing Xcel’s team to identify the hazard before voltage or electrical current loss. This allowed them to take immediate action, dispatching a crew to the scene to safely de-energize the line and to make repairs before an electrical fault/ignition occurred.

Each presenter will share their experience with AGR and how it enables their respective utilities to create more resilient and reliable grids through effective asset management and rapid response to pending or active hazards.