PG&E is using A.I. technology and it’s helping crews know where to be before the storms hit.
“At PG&E, we have a team of meteorologists and data scientists who are developing models to help predict the number of power outages that we would get from storms," Chief Meteorologist Scott Strenfel said.
Crews and troubleshooters are then positioned in areas where they may need to respond to power outages.
“We can leverage tools such as, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and robust historical data to tease out the relationships by what wind speeds tend to cause outages in certain areas," added Strenfel. "And then when the forecast model we could see, are we hitting those wind speeds or not?”
This helps PG&E estimate the number of outages that an area might get from trees coming down on a power line or power lines coming together.
“I think anything we can do to benefit the general public as far as health and safety, take advantage of A.I. technology," local resident Brigitte Miller said. "It's the future. Let's just get it going and so we can keep improving it.”
Residents KSBY spoke to say they are happy A.I. is being put to good use and helping alleviate some stress.
“After paradise, I think everyone is kind of on edge with fires and especially with what just happened down in LA," local college student Heather Martone said. "Hopefully the prediction system is accurate and that's the only thing you can really hope for.”
PG&E says if you see a downed power line, assume it's energized, don’t touch it. Call 911 and report it to PG&E at 1-800-743-5002.
