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Preventing a Critical Outage with Smart Fault Prediction

Company	Griug
Location	Europe
Timeline	2025
Project Overview	Griug partnered with Safegrid to address recurring high-impedance earth faults on a covered conductor line supplying critical customers. By leveraging Safegrid’s Smart Fault Prediction functionality, the utility was able to detect hidden insulation defects, accurately locate the issue, and take preventive action before a major outage occurred.
Products	Safegrid 24/7 Online Measurement System Safegrid Smart Fault Prediction Tool

smart fault prediction This is a Safegrid Case Study.

Background

Covered conductors are widely used in modern power distribution networks, especially in vegetation-dense and wildfire-prone areas, due to their improved safety and resistance to external contact. However, these systems introduce a unique challenge: high-impedance faults, which can be difficult to detect and even harder to locate.

Griug’s network included such covered conductor lines, supplying critical customers where reliability is essential. Maintaining continuous service required advanced monitoring capable of detecting hidden faults that traditional methods often miss.

Challenge

In November 2025, Griug experienced repeated high-impedance earth faults (EFs) on a covered conductor line. The situation presented several challenges:

Faults appeared intermittently with no obvious pattern
No visible damage or clear root cause
Difficulty detecting and locating high-impedance faults
Critical customers at risk of supply interruption
Conventional methods unable to provide actionable insights

Despite multiple fault indications, the root cause remained undetected, increasing the risk of a major outage.

Solution

Griug implemented Safegrid’s Smart Fault Prediction technology to gain deeper visibility into grid conditions.

Key actions:

Continuous monitoring identified partial discharge (PD) activity
A hotspot location was pinpointed along the affected line
Field teams conducted a targeted inspection using an acoustic camera

Findings:

The fault was located precisely at the predicted hotspot
A polymer insulator was identified as the source
The defect showed only minor visual signs, making it nearly impossible to detect without guided diagnostics

This data-driven approach enabled fast and accurate identification of a hidden issue within a complex system.

Benefits

The Safegrid solution delivered several key advantages:

Early detection of hidden insulation faults
Accurate fault localization, reducing inspection time
Improved visibility into high-impedance fault behavior
Reduced reliance on manual trial-and-error methods
Enhanced operational decision-making
Increased reliability for critical infrastructure

Results

With Safegrid’s Smart Fault Prediction:

Faulty insulator identified before failure occurred
Affected line section switched to another feeder to maintain supply
Potential outage avoided for critical customers
Improved response speed and maintenance efficiency

“Another valuable case where we were able to prevent an outage with help of Safegrid’s Smart Fault Prediction functionality.”
— Espen Sørlie, Operations Manager, Griug

Conclusion

This case demonstrates how even advanced covered conductor systems can develop hidden faults that are difficult to detect using conventional methods. By leveraging Smart Fault Prediction and real-time data analytics, Griug successfully prevented a critical outage and ensured uninterrupted power supply.

Safegrid enabled the utility to move from reactive troubleshooting to proactive grid management—delivering improved reliability, operational efficiency, and long-term network resilience.