What crews found
19 field cases from working utility circuits. Each one starts with a DFA report and ends with a crew, a find and an outcome, including the cases where nobody acted and the failure came anyway.
A glowing substation switch, found within two hours
No calls, no SCADA alarm, normal meters. DFA reported series arcing, and a lineman found the failing switch before two days of storms.
Two blinks a day apart led to a charred crossarm beside a pine forest
Nobody lost power for more than a blink. DFA matched the two faults, and the crew found a conductor burning into its crossarm six spans from the prediction.
A circuit lockout explained, and the grass fire it started found
SCADA showed the whole circuit locked out. DFA said why, and the crew went to the predicted span and found arc marks and burned grass.
Six faults in nine hours, no outage, no calls, and a branch removed
A hanging branch tripped a recloser six times without an outage. DFA grouped the faults into one report, and a targeted patrol found it.
Same fault twice in six days, and a dead squirrel found within hours
A breaker trip interrupted more than 1,200 customers twice. DFA linked the two faults within a minute, and the report took the crew to one pole.
Failing clamps, caught arcing and replaced
A failing clamp can arc for weeks before it burns through. Three finds show how DFA turns that warning into a work order.
31 days of warnings from one clamp, and what the first hunt taught
DFA tracked a failing clamp for a month on a 268-mile oilfield circuit. The co-op's first series-arcing search found it as it burned through.
A broken jumper, 12 km out, fixed without an unplanned outage
The one customer it served noticed nothing. DFA reported each flare-up within about a minute, and meter pings led the crew to the pole.
A failing capacitor switch, found and fixed the same day
The arcing barely moved the current. DFA classified it, sized the bank, and the crew arrived knowing which switch had failed.
79 warnings over 200 days, then a cable fitting found and fixed
Pulses of hundreds to thousands of amperes cleared themselves every time. DFA tracked all 79, and an acoustic camera found the failing fitting.
Fourteen hours of escalating faults, ended at one arrester
DFA watched a failure build overnight. When a 3,000 A burst placed it at the substation, a lineman went straight there.
Two blinks in 18 days, and a failing arrester found within four spans
On a 125-mile circuit with about 20 unmonitored reclosers, DFA showed which recloser was working and cut the search area by 76%.
Two storm trips three weeks apart, one cause, fixed by trimming
DFA gave the utility its only notice that two breaker operations were the same fault, and what it was.
1,100 operations in 33 minutes, from reclosers that never locked out
Twelve episodes on ten reclosers at six utilities. None of the utilities knew, and no customer complained.
70 needless blinks in 54 weeks, from a recloser tripping on load
In a winter storm a hydraulic recloser tripped 26 times with no fault on the line. DFA showed why, and the utility bypassed it.
A live wire on the ground, reported within minutes
A storm tore down a three-phase section. DFA tracked the energized conductor for seven minutes and flagged a probable wire down.
How a cooperative uses DFA every day
Bluebonnet's operators pair DFA reports with their circuit model and meter pings. Three cases from their own presentations.
One clamp, four truck rolls, two good transformers
In a blind study DFA saw a failing clamp 2,333 times in 21 days. Without the report, crews chased it the expensive way.
44 warnings, then a line burned down
In a blind study DFA grouped 44 of a feeder's 178 faults as one tree contact. Nobody acted, and 23 months later the conductor broke.