The utility industry is adopting AI to keep their equipment in good working order and keep people and property safe.

A volt transmission failurein Sonoma County is considered the cause of the Kincade Fire, which burned77,000 acres of forest and destroyed over 120 buildings.

Its not the first time faulty power lines have been the cause of major wildfires, and these faults are expected to occur more frequently as the aging grid infrastructure requires more maintenance.

SEE ALSO: Real-Time Data Promises to Reduce Firefighting Risks

To reduce the likelihood of afault leading to evacuations and destruction, Buzz Solutions has developed anartificial intelligence solution, which warns utilities about potential problemsbefore they happen.

The current review process ofelectrical infrastructure takes six to eight months, as engineers have to siftthrough thousands of images and then conduct in-person inspections, beforefixing the faults.

Buzz Solutions AI platformreduces the investigation time to a couple of days, as it runs all of theimages through an asset-tracking system, which can detect faults and vegetationencroachment.

It is definitely time tomove forward using AI to reduce the wildfire threat. We believe the utilityindustry is ready to use a far better approach to keep their equipment in goodworking order and keep people and property safe, said Kaitlyn Albertoli, co-founderand CEO at Buzz Solutions.

Alongside the asset-trackingplatform, Buzz Solutions also offers a predictive maintenance solution, which feedshistorical, asset and fault, and weather data to determine future high-riskareas.

Our vision is to useinnovative technology to safeguard our infrastructure and environment today andhelp to predict where problems will crop up in the future, said Vikhyat Chaudhry,co-founder at CTO at Buzz Solutions. This is even more important as we areseriously impacted by climate change.

Several utilities across theU.S. are piloting the platform, including a utility in Southern California andNew York. It recently received $1.2 million in seed funding to expand itsoperations.

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AI Used to Prevent Californian Wildfires - RTInsights