February 28, 2019    |   back to news

Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) recently (2/26) unveiled a new piece of smart grid technology, called the Automated Transformer Switch (ATS), to prevent and reduce power outages. The announcement regarding the ATS, also known as a VacuFuse Self-Resetting Interrupter, comes as FPL reaches a major smart grid technology milestone, completing the system-wide installation of 80,000 smart switches on the energy grid that reduce customer outages.

"The investments we've made throughout the last 13 years to build a stronger, smarter energy grid continue to provide tangible benefits to our customers in the form of higher day-to-day reliability and faster restoration following a major storm," said Eric Silagy, president and CEO of FPL. "For example, the unprecedented size and scope of Hurricane Irma tested every piece of equipment across our 27,000-square-mile service area in 2017. Smart grid technology enabled us to avoid more than a half million outages during that storm and allowed us to restore service to customers even before it was safe for our trucks to roll."

Since the historic 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons, FPL has invested nearly $3 billion into building a stronger, smarter and more storm-resilient energy grid. These investments have helped the company increase service reliability for its customers by more than 30 percent in the last 10 years. The new ATS was jointly developed by FPL and S&C Electric Company.

S&C opened a facility in Palm Beach County in 2015 for its patented Automated Lateral Switch (ALS) to meet FPL's demand. The device is designed tohelp decrease the number of customers affected by momentary outages, or "flickers," and keeps temporary issues on the grid from becoming long-term outages.

"The smart grid technology we've deployed pays dividends for our customers every day," said Manny Miranda, senior vice president of power delivery for FPL. "The automated smart switches alone have allowed the company to avoid more than 1.3 million interruptions just in 2018."

Source: Florida Power & Light Company