Aussie invention predicts power line faults that can cause bushfires

Now IND Technology, which commercialised the innovation, is seeking federal budget funding to help with the roll out of the EFD system across all single-wire earth return (SWER) networks around the country.

Lead RMIT researcher, Professor Alan Wong said with 2,500 units installed worldwide, the technology now monitored more than 12,500 kilometres of powerlines.

It had prevented more than 750 failures and potentially saved lives.

Prof Wong, said the EFD system "can detect and locate faults on a powerline before they happen".

"You can think of it like a smoke alarm for the power network," Prof Wong said.

"If you place enough sensors across the network, these sensors or alarm system will send out an alert when it thinks there's a certain risk in the network."

During a trial of the technology, the EFD system developed by Wong's team identified a failing conductor on livestock producer Michael Thorne's property at Porcupine Ridge.

"When I'm driving around the property, I'm looking at the stock or at the pasture," Mr Thorne said.

"I'm not looking up at the powerline, which is well above me, and it would be pretty hard to spot a broken strand even if you were paying a reasonable amount of attention.

"The risk is that the power line breaks, drops to the ground and starts a grass fire."

Mr Thorne said the EFD technology had already proven its worth and was a "game changer".

"One day I noticed Alan and his team were standing out in the paddock, looking at the powerline, and I could barely see the fault even once they pointed it out," he said.

"They knew where the fault was, but I didn't even know I had one.

'There was broken strand, which was coming down to the ground, and the line had been weakened but I had no idea."

The broken line was to the north of the house and sheds, on a slope, presenting ideal conditions for a grass fire to start and run.

Mr Thorne said it was reassuring knowing if there was a fault in the line, it could be identified quickly and effectively.

'What I'd like to see is every farmer has this technology, its Australian designed, Australian developed, Australian built and his biggest market is the US," he said.

Prof Wong said according to a report by Adept Economics , every dollar spent on the EFD technology would generate $4.70 in expected benefits for Australia, in terms of the benefits from preventing bushfires and blackouts.

Prof Wong said the patented sensing method and data processing algorithm could even identify the precise location of expected faults down to a 10-meter section of a powerline, and enabled more proactive and cost-effective management of electricity network assets.

"The EFD system is a passive-listening device," he said.

"It listens to radio frequency signals travelling up and down power lines.

"Some of these radio frequency signals are generated by failing assets on the powerlines.

"The EFD system uses the radio frequency information collected by the sensors to work out where and which equipment is failing."

With the EFD system, network owners could monitor every network asset 24/7, including during extreme weather when asset failures were likely to first appear.

Victorian Farmers Federation president Emma Germano said there was a desperate need to make critical infrastructure more resilient and reliable.

"Not only are our critical transmission networks extremely vulnerable to blackouts, they are also a huge risk in extreme weather to spark bushfires," Ms Germano said.

"Our industry and regional communities have just suffered through one of our largest ever blackouts.

"The cost of this was immense and any solution that avoids this in future is worth looking at."