)
Before the Spark: [Utility] on Continuous Monitoring for Transmission Lines
Electrical discharge on transmission infrastructure, including corona, surface discharge, and arcing, can precede insulator failure by months or years. These early fault indicators are difficult to capture through traditional inspection methods, which often rely on scheduled patrols, aerial inspection, or response after an outage, asset failure, or ignition event.
This panel explores what changes when those precursors are monitored continuously at the pole.
A representative from [Utility] will share the operational perspective: what continuous monitoring data looks like on energized transmission lines, how it fits into existing inspection and asset-management workflows, and where it can support decisions around maintenance prioritization, wildfire risk reduction, and field validation. The discussion will also cover practical deployment considerations, including sensor placement, data quality, validation, ownership, and the limits of edge hardware in real utility environments.
The panel will also examine how machine learning can help distinguish meaningful discharge activity from environmental and electrical noise, and what utilities should consider when moving from a single-line trial to a broader monitored corridor.
This session is focused on a specific reliability and ignition-risk problem, and the field evidence emerging around it. Attendees working in transmission asset health, wildfire mitigation, grid reliability, and inspection will leave with a practical framework for evaluating continuous discharge monitoring, including the key questions to pressure-test before launching or scaling a pilot.
