Xcel Energy faces growing challenges in Colorado as the state experiences increasingly severe wildfire risks fueled by prolonged drought, high wind events and changing climate conditions.

As a major utility serving a unique mix of urban and rural areas, Xcel has to constantly balance grid reliability with public safety. The company’s transmission and distribution lines are often situated near increasingly dry vegetation and across mountainous regions - conditions that heighten the risk of utility-related ignitions and complicate mitigation or emergency response efforts.

Now we can respond immediately because we understand the exact type of hazard, location, and damage severity. With Gridware, our team can show up at the right place, with the right equipment, and act without delay.

As wildfire threats escalate, Xcel is investing heavily in grid modernization and safety protocols to reduce ignition risk and protect both infrastructure and communities. Yet, a critical gap remains: structural failures can still go undetected if they haven’t triggered an electrical fault, prolonging a dangerous hazard awareness delay.

Unprecedented Hazard Detection and Response Times

Xcel partnered with Gridware in mid-2023 to pilot Active Grid Response (AGR) across several high-risk circuits in the foothills outside of Denver and Boulder, CO.

Over a period of several months, Xcel saw the unique ability of Gridware AGR to measure physical, environmental and electrical factors to unlock new advantages, including:

1. Detecting high impedance hazards, like energized primary tapping against a pole, that do not trip protection systems.
2. Detecting physical-only hazards, like vehicles hitting poles, that otherwise go undetectable and reduce the structural integrity of assets.
3. Reducing patrol times by locating hazards down to a single pole location.

After a successful pilot and initial expansion, Xcel has forged a longterm partnership with Gridware to begin deployment of AGR across each of its operating companies.

Gridware AGR Averts Wildfire

On March 17^th, around dusk during the waning hours of a red-flag warning (high fire danger), wind gusts in excess of 45 mph caused multiple adjacent poles to structurally fail. The only thing holding them up was the primary lines that remained energized as they began to lean across a roadway.
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When something like this happens it usually takes a bystander reporting it to emergency services and for them to arrive on scene before the utility is made aware of the situation. If the damage goes unnoticed long enough, the risk of the poles completely failing continues to escalate, eventually causing lines to touch the ground and even slap together triggering an electrical fault. This type of event has a high probability of throwing sparks that could cause a fire. Particularly during a red-flag warning where there is low humidity, plenty of dry fuel and high winds. All the ingredients for a potentially catastrophic wildfire.
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Fortunately with Gridware AGR deployed on the circuit, the structural failure was detected through physical and environmental sensing – vibrations, acoustics, acceleration, and pole tilt – allowing Xcel to be notified in near real-time of the hazard. This allowed them to take immediate action, dispatching a crew to the scene, safely deenergizing the line and making repairs before an electrical fault or ignition event could occur.

As part of their modernization efforts, Xcel uses software to model potential fire spread. From this ignition point and under these conditions, the model determined they had prevented a fire that could have grown to 3,200 acres and affected 360 structures.

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