JEA Expands Deployment of Sentient Energy Distribution Grid Sensors to Improve Grid Reliability

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., May 02, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sentient Energy, Inc., a leading provider of advanced grid monitoring and analytics for electric utilities, today announced that JEA will expand the deployment of Sentient Energy’s MM3 line sensors as part of its Grid Modernization project.  JEA, located in Jacksonville, is Florida’s largest community-owned electric utility, and one of the largest public power utilities in North America, serving more than 400,000 electric customers.

JEA has been looking to further improve their service reliability and reduce costs for their customers.  Partnering with Sentient Energy, JEA has total grid visibility, to augment and optimize current restoration practices. Using Sentient’s MM3 sensors, JEA is able to sectionalize the grid, pinpoint the location of faults and improve switching for faster service restoration and immediately minimize the number of customer minutes interrupted, while targeting crew restoration to the fault locations.  The next phase of the project includes deploying low amp sensors on lightly loaded feeders and laterals and expanding into underground fault location and isolation.  Using the native DNP capabilities of the system, JEA has been able to rapidly deploy the Sentient platform into a production environment.

“Sentient Energy’s advanced line sensor platform plays an integral role in JEA’s mission to reduce System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI),” said Garry Baker, Director of Energy Systems Operations for JEA. “Sentient’s platform has been proven at scale, and their ability to easily and seamlessly integrate with our existing systems were important considerations in our decision to partner with them.  We look forward to expanding our relationship with Sentient and work with them as we continue to modernize our grid, gain more visibility across our network, and use the information from Sentient to improve our operations and other host systems.”

The Sentient line sensors are equipped with an industrial-grade Verizon cellular SIM card provided by JEA. JEA’s Verizon communications network will connect the sensors to JEA’s RTAC (Real-Time Automation Controller), which feeds the data to JEA’s SCADA system. The result is seamless communication and integration from the Sentient Energy sensors to JEA’s SCADA system­­­­­­­­­.

Sentient Energy will assist JEA in the overall design, SCADA integration and sensor installation, including sensor fleet health management checks, recommended practices and DNP configuration changes. Sentient Energy will also provide training and assistance in the development of the DNP profile baseline to support JEA’s use cases. The ability to monitor 2-way load flow is critical for the continued management of JEA’s distribution grid.

About JEA

JEA is the largest municipal electric utility in Florida and one of the largest water and sewer utilities in the nation providing electric, water and sewer service to residents and businesses in northeast Florida.  For more information visit www.jea.com.

About Sentient Energy, Inc.

Sentient Energy is the premier Intelligent Sensing Platform Provider for power utilities. Sentient provides the industry’s only Grid Analytics System that covers the entire distribution network with quickly deployed intelligent sensors and analytics that identify and analyze potential faults and other grid events. Sentient Energy leads the market with the largest mesh network line sensor deployments in North America helping utilities deliver power reliably and safely. Sentient partners with leading utility network providers including Landis + Gyr, Itron, Verizon, AT&T and Telus. For more information visit www.sentient-energy.com.