Smart technology to help Duke avoid outages, speed restorations after hurricanes

As hurricane season approaches, Duke Energy in Florida is reminding customers that its smart, self-healing technology will help avoid power outages and speed up restorations after a storm hits.

More than 60 percent of Duke’s Florida customers are served by self-healing capabilities, the company said. The company aims to increase that to 80 percent over the next few years. Self-healing technology automatically detects power outages and reroutes the power to restore service faster or avoid the outage in the first place. Last year, the company said, the self-healing technology helped to avoid an estimated 513,000 extended outages, saving more than 3.8 million hours of outage time.

“We’re working hard to improve reliability for our customers, strengthen the grid against severe weather and enhance our response after a major storm,” said Melissa Seixas, Duke Energy Florida state president. “The back-to-back storms we experienced last hurricane season serve as strong reminders of the importance of this grid-strengthening work and how these investments continue to benefit customers during power outages.”

The technology also helps crews in the field with power restoration after a storm, officials said, as well as reducing outage impacts and freeing up resources to help restore power in other locations.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 2023 is expected to see between 12 and 17 total named storms of 39 mph or higher winds. Of those, five to nine could become hurricanes, with one to four becoming major hurricanes with winds of 111 mph or higher. The Climate Prediction Center of NOAA said there is a 40 percent chance the season will be near-normal and a 30 percent chance the season will be above-normal. The administration said it was 70 percent confident in its predictions.