| Company |
Vakka-Suomen Voima
|
| Location |
Satakunta and Varsinais-Suomi regions, Finland
|
| Timeline | 2023 |
| Project Overview |
Vakka-Suomen Voima implemented Safegrid’s Intelligent Grid System™ to enhance predictive maintenance and improve fault detection across its distribution network. The solution enabled the utility to identify and resolve difficult, intermittent earth faults, reducing outages and improving operational efficiency. |
| Products | Safegrid Intelligent Grid System® |
Founded in 1909, Vakka-Suomen Voima has over 110 years of operational history. Today, the utility manages more than 4,000 km of network and serves over 25,000 customers across nine municipalities in Finland.
Like many utilities with extensive infrastructure, Vakka-Suomen Voima faces challenges in maintaining reliability, especially when dealing with faults that are not immediately visible or detectable through conventional methods.
The utility experienced recurring issues in its network:
Earth fault trips affecting system performance
Customer complaints about flickering lights
Difficulty identifying the exact source of abnormal behavior
Intermittent faults that were hard to locate using traditional methods
Risk of outages and increased maintenance costs
Despite clear signs of a problem, the root cause remained hidden, making resolution time-consuming and inefficient.
Safegrid’s Intelligent Grid System™ was deployed to provide real-time monitoring and advanced fault detection.
Detection of abnormal electrical signals in the network
Precise fault localization
Continuous monitoring to identify intermittent issues
Safegrid identified abnormal signals originating from a specific substation
Field inspection revealed leaking switchgear causing earth faults against the insulator body
The faulty breaker was quickly isolated and repaired
This data-driven approach allowed the team to move directly to the root cause without unnecessary investigation.
The Safegrid solution delivered key advantages:
Ability to locate difficult, intermittent earth faults
Reduced reliance on trial-and-error fault tracing
Faster and more efficient maintenance operations
Improved grid reliability and performance
Prevention of costly outages
With Safegrid’s Intelligent Grid System™, Vakka-Suomen Voima achieved:
Accurate identification of previously hard-to-locate faults
Faster fault detection and repair
Reduced downtime and improved service reliability
Time and cost savings in maintenance operations
“Safegrid has helped us to locate intermittent earth faults that have been difficult to locate. This has saved time and money in our maintenance operations.”
— Mikko Heinonen, Operations Manager
This case highlights the value of advanced monitoring in detecting and resolving complex grid issues. By leveraging Safegrid’s Intelligent Grid System™, Vakka-Suomen Voima successfully identified and addressed a hidden fault that could have led to larger disruptions.
The result is a more reliable, efficient, and proactive grid, demonstrating how intelligent technology can transform maintenance practices and improve overall network performance.