“We work with our utility partner’s organizations, and understand, is this a technology that is going to move the needle around growth, or around reducing O&M costs?”

“If you’re not improving, if you’re not innovating, you’re falling behind.”

California’s utilities are using drones, sensors, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to reduce wildfire risk in ways that would seem like science fiction a few years ago.

Their project prevents mylar balloons from causing a blackout or fire when they float into a power line.

“The hacker can ramp down or up the DC power. We monitor those. If the behavior is not consistent with normal operation, we stop the command from being executed.”