Partner Case Study

SIMTECH + AEM Help a Clean Energy Utility Boost Its Weather Resilience

The need for reliable energy

Overview

Customers depend on their energy providers to “keep the lights on.” People’s lives and livelihoods depend on it. As a result, it’s imperative that energy companies take extensive precautions to minimize unplanned service interruptions – including interruptions from weather-related threats like wind and lightning.

This is the story of how a leader in wind and solar power, serving more than 2,000 municipalities throughout Brazil and Texas, managed to enhance its resilience to weather-related threats.

MEET SIMTECH

SIMTECH serves the Brazilian market by providing maritime, defense, and meteorology solutions that are powered by its technology partners from abroad. To support its Brazilian customers, SIMTECH has been developing partnerships with best-in-class technology companies for the past 30+ years. Among them are AEM and our Earth Networks brand.

SIMTECH is committed to “excellence in the supply of equipment, systems, and services.” So, when they learned that their client needed a solution to improve its weather resilience, SIMTECH naturally turned to AEM.

Bruno D'Aiuto,

Meteorologist | Weather Division Manager

Working on this project with AEM is an honor for SIMTECH, as it involves providing precise data from our national lightning detection network to Brazil’s growing renewable energy sector, ensuring the safety of workers and infrastructure.

Overcoming weather-related challenges

The Challenges

Inclement weather, particularly lightning, can strain or damage critical infrastructure that is essential for generating, transmitting, and delivering power. This can result in outages and/or downed power lines. And it can create hazardous –even deadly – conditions for the workers who are tasked with keeping that infrastructure in working order. That’s why energy providers need a solution to help them stay on top of threatening weather conditions, especially lightning.

1. COMPROMISED DECISION-MAKING

A lack of real-time weather data was impairing decision-making and resource management.

2. HEIGHTENED EMPLOYEE SAFETY RISKS

Unpredictable weather made it difficult to protect maintenance personnel against adverse conditions like lightning.

3. OPERATIONAL DOWNTIME

To better detect and repair outages, SIMTECH’s client needed to know exactly when and where adverse weather was hitting.

Sferic Maps and Lightning API

The Solution

To help their clean-energy customer solve its weather-related challenges, SIMTECH outfitted them with AEM’s Sferic Maps® and Lightning API. Sferic Maps enables the customer to track and alert employees to changing weather conditions in real time. Tracking is available for 80+ weather parameters, including temperature and lightning. The Lightning API enables the customer to integrate historical lightning data (including times and locations) into their own tools, such as websites and apps.

OPTIMIZED RESOURCE ALLOCATION

Real-time weather and lightning data have helped improve decision-making; the company now knows exactly when and where resources are most likely to be needed.

IMPROVED WORKER SAFETY

Automated alerts help maintenance crews get out of harm’s way when dangerous weather conditions like lightning are present.

REDUCED SERVICE INTERRUPTION

Knowing when and where weather poses a threat to infrastructure, the company can proactively avoid or quickly repair damage that might otherwise cause prolonged downtime.

Energy company achieves improved weather resilience

With the help of AEM’s Sferic Maps and our Lightning API, SIMTECH’s client has vastly improved its situational awareness. With the ability to deploy resources more safely and effectively, the company is in a much better position to mitigate the negative effects of inclement weather without exposing workers to unnecessary risks. As a result, it is benefitting from more uptime and a safer workforce.

The Components