The Latest Innovations in Electrical Technology
Electrical technology has recently pushed its limits further. — from AR-enabled diagnostics to smart inverters that manage energy, they’re changing the way electrical work gets done.
IoT (Internet of Things) is one powerful beast, connecting millions of machines and systems through sensors network. This is where electrical engineers have been setting the pace with a lot of innovative communication protocols, power-saving gadgets and security solutions.
AI
Electrical power is entering a new age of human talent and AI. These systems optimize work, increase security and build a cleaner future.
Feng Qiu honed a machine learning model that can compute power outage risk 12 times faster than an expert can do it by hand. This can help utilities to anticipate possible outages and plan accordingly.
AI also detects risks (grown trees that might spill onto transmission lines, blackout), to reduce downtime and cost to customers. AI can even catch unauthorised use patterns and report suspicious movements on network transmission lines or equipment.
Prefabrication
Electric prefabrication has become a very common construction practice for reduced lead times and efficiency. It’s the fabrication of components out of construction site confinement – anything from single distribution panels to control systems.
BIM can also be used by electrical contractors to create accurate, detailed models of their projects for prefabrication. This enables high-precision planning and manufacturing, and less field changes. And also for determining potential conflicts between parts.
There are many benefits to prefabrication for electrical subcontractors, such as savings on raw materials while eliminating waste and optimizing labor productivity on the job site. But before they do that, they have to learn everything about it.
Drones
Drones make the most industries safer and more efficient. Electricity utilities use drones to inspect power lines and substations so that they are able to see if something’s going wrong before it causes outages, without having linemen climb towers or access high-voltage equipment.
Thermal imagers for drones can identify hotspots that could set fires in power lines. Then there are the optical and hyperspectral sensors that these drones carry with them to detect a pipe leak.
These cameras can take pictures that get merged into a digital map, or give information about the state of structures like corrosion or water-logging.
Wearables
Wearables let users check their health, fitness, and more at the tap of a wrist – so they can make better decisions and live happier lives.
This is especially helpful in hospitals, which can help doctors diagnose and treat patients in a short time. It could warn patients of problems with their heartbeat or blood pressure, for instance, and stop potentially hazardous mistakes in the operating room.
Wearable technologies are also being applied by electrical engineers at work to avoid on-the-job accidents. eg: Some wearables vibrate to prevent workers from walking onto high voltage machinery and allow authentication to enter delicate machines.
Smart grids
Smart grids use digital and sensor technology to better integrate electricity supply and demand, giving you a more scalable energy management, cheaper prices, and improved grid performance.
Modern metering networks communicate two-way between consumers and suppliers to detect outages and give insight into what could have led to them.
Additionally, smart home devices help to prevent waste distribution energy – a problem with old electric networks. By giving them information on when people use the most electricity, by giving them information on when they are at their heaviest usage for reducing consumption; even offering to let them sell surplus energy back to the grid!
Diversity
Electricity company could benefit from more variety. Diversity not only makes the world fair, it can help your customer service and business success – and a diverse team of employees brings new ideas into the picture.
Engineering is populated by white men for reasons that are much more nuanced than hiring procedures themselves, but that must change if engineering is going to be competitive in a changing world.
Employers looking to achieve diversity should actively recruit to hire the right people, write gender neutral job descriptions, and conduct structured interviews with professional interviewers that are trained to ask you the right questions.