2026 Event Schedule

 In 2023 DTE embarked on a 5-year transformative journey to enhance grid reliability and operational efficiency through the implementation of Fault Location, Isolation, and Service Restoration (FLISR) technology covering all 3300 feeders across the service territory. This abstract outlines the unique validation methodology which DTE followed to assess the reliability and accuracy of FLISR functionalities to ensure more confident, robust and widely adapted operationalization. 

Methodology and Approach: 
DTE's validation process is based on analyzing real field faults and follows an incremental path to cover each and all FLISR functionalities. Validation started with the manual fault location accuracy assessment and is expanding in the order of auto fault locating, isolation in advisory mode, restoration in advisory mode.  Presently we are at Auto Fault Locating + Advisory Isolation validation phase of the project. 
Our validation approach uses the actual field faults reported by SCADA, which are verified against SCADA-validated OMS jobs to assess the accuracy of FLISR's fault location estimation functional. This validation against real-world data ensures alignment with actual network conditions, which is critical for operational readiness. Isolation steps are validated against actual model of the network. Any not acceptable accuracy results trigger root cause analysis and corrective actions if applicable. 

The validation phase employs defined metrics, measurement method for each of the following FLISR functions: 
1) Fault detection – bidirectional validation of fault events and SCADA verified outages.
2) Location estimation – proximity of FLISR estimated location with actual fault location (within 800 feet of the actual fault or in the same protection zone).
3) Switching plan for isolation – ability of FLISR estimated isolation switching plan to isolate the affected area to smallest possible section.

Faults where FLISR could not produce a result or produced inaccurate results are analyzed further to determine the root cause. This ensures that we quantifiably differentiate among model data issues, telemetry issues, field device issues, algorithm issues, DPF convergence issues. Activities carried out during the validation phase based a great foundation to create the user guide for future use. DTE created a comprehensive user guide which we aim to use for user training and SWIs for operational activities. 

Lessons Learned and Insights: 
The validation process underscores the significance of utilizing actual data over simulations, facilitating early risk identification and mitigation.  Metrics to assess progress and FLISR results accuracy are critical to provide transparent view of the project. Root causes identify the issues which could make FLISR less effective.