Mark Twain famously said: "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes and it will change.” The unpredictability of weather has plagued mankind since the dawn of time, and its effect is felt across all facets of life including the way our distribution network operates.
As severe weather moves across a region, it has the potential to affect several parts of the grid, all at once. Exacerbating this occurrence is a network that is already coping with changing demand and supply, distributed energy resources – pushing it close to its limits.
It takes one faulty feeder to cause a cascading effect, and the challenge is to not only identify the outage, but what has happened, what else could be affected, where power can safely be rerouted, which field teams need to be deployed and how quickly supply can be restored?
Indeed, extreme weather has caused several significant power outages globally and in South Africa in recent years. In 2025, Winter Storm Blair left over 300,000 customers without power across seven US states, while a tornado outbreak that same year cut electricity to more than 230,000 homes and businesses.
Closer to home, South Africa experienced widespread power outages in August 2026 due to severe winter storms, with KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, and the Free State particularly hard-hit.
From reactive to predictive grid management
The distribution network has been built around a relatively predictable model of electricity generation, transmission and consumption. However, as mentioned, energy systems are changing creating a more decentralised network.
This has resulted in generation and consumption patterns that vary by location and time of day. And it is here where the weather has the potential to cause even further unpredictability plus throw in ageing infrastructure and you are faced with a smorgasbord of complexity.
Fortunately, digitalisation has concrete answers and the case for Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS) is crystal clear.
ADMS offers specialised software capabilities to provide utilities with a more comprehensive view of their networks and support real-time decision-making.
For example, in the case of weather, Schneider Electric EcoStruxure ADMS offers benefits such as:
- Real-time monitoring: Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure ADMS can process over one million data points providing utilities granular visibility into grid performance during storms or heatwaves.
- Fault location and isolation: automated detection and isolation of faults reduces downtime. For example, overhead line faults that could spark bushfires are quickly localised and disconnected.
- Adaptive response: ADMS allows operators to reroute power flows and balance loads dynamically, ensuring continuity of supply even when parts of the grid are compromised.
- Integration with AI and satellite data: Utilities can assess vegetation risks and wildfire exposure, proactively mitigating hazards before they escalate
- When integrated with AI-enabled analytics, GIS and satellite data, utilities can assess vegetation encroachment and wildfire risk more proactively.
Indeed, the objective is to move towards an adaptive approach to grid management, where utilities can understand actual and future network states and respond to both expected and unexpected events safely and efficiently.
The network as a whole
As mentioned, fault on one part of the network can have consequences elsewhere. Similarly, a new distributed energy connection may affect network conditions beyond the immediate point of connection.
ADMS provides real-time observability of the network alongside insight into forecasted network states. This enables utilities to analyse and optimise the system, conduct what-if scenarios and undertake planning studies.
As an example, when an outage occurs, the priority is not simply to know what customer is impacted, but also where and the extent of the fault, determining how the network can be safely reconfigured and the response, coordinated.
Here, advanced outage management, switching management and real-time field capabilities can help utilities respond more quickly, while technologies such as Fault Location, Isolation and Service Restoration can support faster restoration.
ADMS brings these capabilities together within a unified operational platform, enabling utilities to respond faster, improve reliability and make better-informed operational decisions.
Ultimately, Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure ADMS creates a shared, real-time understanding of the distribution network – giving utilities the ability to see what is happening, understand what it means, anticipate what could happen next and act accordingly.
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