Alarming news about forest fires (also known as bushfires in Australia or wildfires in California) have increasingly dominated this year’s headlines, with blazes in the coldest regions of Siberia, to the sunny west coast of the US. For over 20 years, scientists have warned that climate change would increase the risk of extreme bushfires – today it’s clear, this warning was accurate!
Alongside the increasing quantity, also the nature of bushfires has changed. Due to global warming, bushfire conditions are now more dangerous than in the past, and the risk to people and nature has increased. Listening to the scientists’ alarming prognosis for the upcoming years, it’s evident that we must take substantial and rapid action to stop this catastrophic development.
As we all know, a key condition for the rise of any fire is an ignition source. Besides lightning strikes and careless human behavior, also failures in the electrical grid can be a potential source of ignition. Thus, it’s decisive to develop innovative grid technologies that prevent fires caused by electrical failures.
As part of the REGENERA™ portfolio, we have pioneered a cutting-edge solution, called ARCC™ – Advanced Residual Current Compensation, that reacts to the surge of current unleashed when a power line strikes the ground or a tree. Once this occurs, the ARCC™ instantly drops the faulted line’s voltage to 250 volts in less than 2 seconds. In result, the energy level at the point of failure is so low that fires cannot initiate even with dry fuel such as dry leaves and plants, dead trees, and other organic material.
But the ARCC™ system is also characterized by another unique feature: the suppression of a faulty line does not cause a widespread power blackout. In fact, the customer at the end of the power line never learns that a fault has occurred. Intriguing, isn’t it?
Developed and tested by Trench Austria, the ARCC™ system has been successfully applied since 2019 in Victoria/Australia to prevent vegetation fires during the high-risk fire season. Today, the system has confirmed its outstanding capabilities in mitigating line-to-ground fault-initiated wildfires around the globe!
Embracing the holistic REGENERA™ mindset, we are committed to #reduce the catastrophic impact of escalating wildfires on our planet and increase human safety with the disruptive technology of ARCC™ and sustainable 360° solutions!
To join our global movement and learn more about the technical advances of the ARCC™ wildfire mitigation system, click here and follow us on LinkedIn.
by Robert Stadler