Analysis of Power Quality Events for Wildfire Monitoring: Lessons Learned from a California Wildfire

This paper conducts an investigative analysis on the potential insights that power quality events may provide in wildfire monitoring, with a focus on grid-caused wildfires, using real-world data from a major utility in California. The analysis demonstrates two advantages of incorporating power quality events in this context. Firstly, due to their inherent sensitivity, power quality sensors capture certain important events in voltage and current waveforms that are not visible in fault data. Notably, a unique power quality event was discovered and characterized, potentially offering new details about the ignition that started a major fire. Secondly, it is common for multiple power quality meters at different locations to capture the same physical event, as observed at their respective locations. This can help with validating hypotheses about the underlying physical causes of the events by utilizing data from multiple datasets, such as for ignition precursor signature analysis in wildfire monitoring.