Driving Intelligence into Action on the Road to a Smarter, More Resilient Grid

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By Ernst Scholtz, S&C Electric Company’s Chief Technology Officer

As the nation’s aging electrical grid faces more frequent extreme weather events, power outages are increasing and becoming more devastating. According to Climate Central, around 80% of major U.S. power outages between 2000 and 2023 were caused by weather-related events. The number and duration of these outages have doubled over the past decade, with rural communities often enduring days-long disruptions.

The economic and human costs are staggering. In 2022, the U.S. experienced 18 weather-related disasters, each causing more than $1 billion in damages. By 2024, the impact of extreme weather on the grid had intensified.

This trend will likely continue. We must invest in reliability and resilience today to prepare our grid for an increasingly complex future.

A Smarter Smart Grid: Beyond Data to Action

The wave of smart grid activity from the 2010s was primarily centered on increased data gathering, mainly by deploying advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). This increased insight was helpful in accurately metering usage by consumers, eliminating manual meter reads, and overall increased engagement between electricity providers and consumers. Smart Grid 1.0, as realized, still left a critical observability gap of the actual situations in the distribution grid. The deployment of cost-effective sensors in the grid and passing of the data to where information can be compiled did not reach the lofty ambitions initially envisioned.

For the smart grid to reach its full potential, intelligence must extend beyond data collection to include real-time action based on increased grid observability. That means deploying devices capable of responding in and near real-time to grid conditions—restoring power autonomously, isolating faults, and enabling self-healing capabilities. Historically, distribution grids lived with this observability gap (due to the cost of sensing, communication challenges, and large-scale distributed nature of the grid), and devices were designed to act on local information, such as fuses. However, relying on fuses and considering the number of outages increasing and the fact that most of these outages are temporary, there is room for bringing intelligent devices into the grid to boost the reliability and resilience of the distribution grid.

Technology for Smarter Protection

As utilities explore solutions to enhance grid resilience, undergrounding has emerged as a key strategy, particularly for rebuilding efforts. While undergrounding is ideal for new developments and complete rebuilds, underground distribution circuits are infallible. Cable faults and other events can also create outages that are difficult to find and correct if insufficient intelligence is not built into the system.

This is where S&C’s EdgeRestore® system plays a crucial role. EdgeRestore® provides rapid restoration for underground distribution networks, enabling fault isolation and system reconfiguration and restoration to minimize customer outages. By integrating EdgeRestore into undergrounding projects, utilities can improve service reliability while reducing the time and expense associated with traditional underground fault restoration.

In overhead distribution, replacing fuses with advanced lateral protection devices like S&C’s TripSaver® II Cutout-Mounted Recloser offers a cost-effective—high impact—way to reduce unnecessary outages and increase uptime. Additionally, sectionalizing strategies, including devices like S&C’s IntelliRupter® PulseCloser, enhance fault isolation and minimize disruption, ensuring a more intelligent, self-healing grid.

The Next Evolution: Moving from Monitoring to Action

Modernizing the distribution grid isn’t just about adding intelligence—it’s about ensuring that intelligence translates into better actions, like protection and faster recovery. Smart distribution grids must be designed to bridge the gap between sensing and action. That means integrating:

• Self-healing networks that use intelligent switching and automation to restore power quickly.
• Advanced protection devices that do more than react—they optimize and adapt.
• A mix of undergrounding and intelligent lateral protection to provide the best solutions for different environments.
• Sensors placed in the grid to increase extraction of actionable information to provide real-time fault sensing and situational awareness, enabling faster outage mitigation and operational efficiency.

As extreme weather events increase and electricity demand continues to rise due to electrification, distributed energy resources (DERs), and changing customer needs, the grid must be equipped to handle these challenges proactively. Strengthening the distribution system with intelligent automation, fault isolation, and optimized protection strategies will help create a resilient, adaptable, and future-ready grid.

Looking Ahead: A Smarter Future Starts Now

A resilient, intelligent smart grid doesn’t require waiting for future breakthroughs—proven solutions exist today. By leveraging undergrounding where feasible, S&C’s EdgeRestore® for underground distribution resilience, smarter lateral protection for existing infrastructure, and sectionalizing strategies to improve fault isolation, utilities can create a grid that not only collects data but acts on it—delivering real, measurable improvements in reliability.

The challenge ahead isn’t just about making the grid smarter; it’s about making it smarter and nimbler where it matters most—on the distribution system, where 90% of outages occur. The path forward is clear: an adaptive grid, one that marries intelligence with action in real-time, is the key to a reliable and resilient future.