Inferring non-outage events using meter voltage data

Power distribution utilities incur significant expenditures due to field operations. While restoration efforts following outages lead to truck rolls in order to identify and rectify faults, there exist several non-outage events that also result in generation of work orders and crew visits. In this paper, we discuss a new problem in the smart grid domain wherein data-driven approaches may be used to improve field operations and customer experience by minimizing the time required to diagnose, locate and rectify non-outage faults. In particular, we discuss how voltage datastream from customer smart meters can be leveraged to pre-inform the crew about such faults and proactively generate work orders. We also conduct a preliminary investigation based on meter data obtained from a large electrical utility in North America.