Sentient Energy

Overview

Sentient Energy specializes in intelligent sensing, data analytics, optimization, and control technologies for electrical distribution grids. Their solutions empower electric utilities to make data-driven decisions, enhancing power delivery's safety, reliability, and efficiency. 

Sentient Energy offers hardware and software systems that provide real-time monitoring and analytics. These tools assist utilities in predicting outages, mitigating wildfire risks, monitoring underground infrastructure, controlling grid edge operations, measuring harmonics, detecting faults, and monitoring systems and assets.

 By integrating these advanced technologies, Sentient Energy helps utilities tackle challenges in power delivery, achieve clean energy electrification goals, and adapt to the evolving demands of modern distribution grids.

Product range

Sentient Energy's Grid Analytics System™ comprises various components, including the MM3, MM3ai, and ZM1 overhead sensors, the UM3+ and UM1 underground sensors, and the VC-10 voltage control system. Together with the Ample® Analytics Platform, this system offers utilities enhanced visibility into their distribution systems. This increased visibility helps improve reliability and supports data-driven operational decision-making.

Sentient Energy provides a comprehensive view of any utility's distribution grid through overhead line sensors, voltage control, and underground sensors.

  1. Overhead deployment

MM3 Overhead Line Sensor

Sentient Energy’s MM3 is an intelligent overhead line sensor used for fault detection, load monitoring and fault waveform capture. The MM3 is line-powered and communicates to a head-end system using cellular or mesh technologies.


Sensing and measurement capabilities for the MM3 include current, conductor temperature, voltage characteristics, GPS for location, a precision clock, and high-resolution waveform capture. 


ZM1 Low Amperage Overhead Line Sensor

The Sentient Energy ZM1 is an intelligent overhead line sensor used for fault detection, load monitoring and fault waveform capture. The ZM1 is battery-powered and can be deployed on power lines with lower current such as overhead low-load feeders, lateral lines, feeder tie points and rural distribution circuits.


Sensing and measurement capabilities for the ZM1 include fault detection with magnitude, load monitoring, waveform capture, voltage presence, and current direction. The sensor is equipped with a GPS receiver for accurate location.


2. Underground deployment

UM1 underground sensor

Increase visibility of underground residential distribution with Sentient Energy’s UM1. Designed specifically for single-phase underground residential distribution (URD) transformer cabinets, the UM1 monitors both primary and secondary cables to extend visibility, fault detection, and load monitoring further along underground distribution circuits.


The UM1’s advanced sensing capabilities include fault detection and highly accurate measurement of fault magnitudes and load current levels. UM1 data is collected by the Ample Analytics Platform via cellular communications for visualization and analysis. The alerts and data from UM1 can also be configured and integrated to stream into systems such as OMS, ADMS.


UM3+ underground LIne monitor

Sentient Energy’s UM3+ underground line sensor is an intelligent line sensor used to help utilities improve reliability. It captures and transmits accurate fault, disturbance, and load data from locations along underground feeders.


Sensing and measurement capabilities for the UM3+ include:

  • Underground fault detection

  • Highly accurate load and fault magnitude

  • Waveform capture

  • Equipped with GPS for location

  • GPS / PPS-level precision clock for highly accurate time-stamping (thereby allowing collating waveforms with those from other devices to perform a thorough post-even analysis).


3. VOltage control

VC-10 Dynamic VAR compensator

The Sentient Energy Grid Edge Control solution is comprised of VC10 hardware and Ample software. The VC10 is a low voltage dynamic VAR compensator and Ample is software for monitoring, configuration, and peak demand management.

Each VC10 autonomously injects up to 10 kVAR on the low voltage side of the distribution transformer to reduce voltage volatility and boost low voltage points.


Grid Edge Control improves conservation voltage reduction (CVR) to deliver incremental energy savings of 1-3% and increases hosting of solar and electric vehicle (EV) charging.

About the company

Sentient Energy offers an ecosystem of grid-edge devices and data-driven solutions that monitor and analyze the electrical health of overhead and underground assets to proactively alert utilities to potential issues on the grid (e.g., damaged equipment, vegetation overgrowth, etc.). Leveraging the near real-time visibility of anomaly waveform activity, including identification of recurring or trending anomalies, Utilities can implement a risk-based strategy to prioritize outage and maintenance activities. Sentient’s proprietary machine-learning algorithms and intelligent line sensing devices provide grid visibility, outage predictions, real-time situational data, and other valuable insights needed to make impactful reliability and resiliency improvements.

Sentient’s intelligent line sensors can be installed on distribution lines up to 46 kV, and capture load and fault current measurements, as well as line disturbances to identify anomalies indicative of vegetation and equipment maintenance issues. Built-in intelligence in the sensors ensures that only significant anomalies are sent back to the analytics platform (AMPLETM), optimizing data bandwidth costs. The Sentient analytics platform then further analyzes the data to identify adn alert on inspection priorities and potential causes. For example, based on historical disturbance data and temporary fault events data, Sentient can identify if a tree is repeatedly brushing up against a distribution line or if a component (e.g., insulator) is damaged well before the condition results in an outage, minimizing further damage to surrounding grid assets or the risk of a larger outage. Sentient solutions can also identify overloaded feeders, transformers, or other areas of the grid to inform a Utility's system planning strategy.

Differentiators

Visibility

Many utilities lack full system visibility (<60% coverage) and have visibility only to the substation or feeder head

Precision

Many SCADA enabled sensors only detect large disturbances and the majority of anomalies and issues are missed 

Deployment

SCADA/FLISR solutions take 3+ years to roll out and require feeder-by-feeder rollout, GIS integration, power flow, etc. 

Automation

Centralized grid management approach starts at substation level and does not address specific feeder problem areas

Representation and origin

Composite Power Group is privileged to be the nationwide representative of Sentient Energy’s products across Canada.

For pricing, delivery, product information,
or any questions, contact us:

Sentient Energy’s headquarters is in Dallas, Texas

 
 

To learn more about Sentient Energy,
visit their official website: