Moonshot update: Optimise grid operations: Seeing grid risk before it strikes by bringing asset health into the control room

Context

This project is one of five Moonshots in Elia Group’s new Moonshot programme, which brings together ambitious innovation projects designed to address key challenges for the future energy system and deliver significant impact.

This project tackles a challenge that is becoming more pressing every day: our electricity grid is working harder than ever. More renewable energy, the electrification of transport, heating and industry, ageing equipment and delays in new infrastructure leave the grid operating with tighter margins. Keeping the lights on in that context requires a sharper view of risk.

Today, control rooms manage that risk with a proven safety rule called N-1: the grid must remain safe even if any single element, such as a line or a transformer, suddenly fails. It is a robust principle that tells operators very well what the impact of a failure would be. What it does not yet fully capture is how likely each failure is at a given moment.

That missing piece is closer than it might seem, because Elia already knows a great deal about the condition of its assets. Inspections, measurements and expert assessments are translated into an Asset Health Index, and a Quantified Risk Model turns that health into risk for the wider system. Until now, however, this knowledge has mainly supported maintenance and long-term planning, not day-to-day decisions in the control room.

This Moonshot sets out to close that gap. Its ambition: “By 2027, the operator has near-to-real-time insights on the system risk of its critical operational assets.” The goal is not to replace N-1, but to make it smarter by adding a new dimension: how likely a failure really is, right now. Ultimately, this helps us keep the grid secure and use our existing infrastructure as efficiently as possible, in the interest of society.

Our hypothesis

At the heart of this Moonshot is one simple question: “If we know the real condition of our assets, can we make better operational decisions?” We believe the answer is yes, in three concrete ways:

• Smarter mitigation. When operators know which equipment is most likely to fail, they can focus their remedial actions, such as rerouting power flows or adjusting generation, where It matters most.
• Better timing and prioritisation. Knowing which assets are weakest helps decide where to act first and when. Interventions can then be planned at the right moment, before a weak point becomes a problem.
• More confidence during temporary situations. During maintenance or construction works, parts of the grid are temporarily less robust. Knowing the condition of the remaining assets shows us how much risk we are really taking, so we can manage these periods with greater longer use certainty. 
  The Proof of Concept (PoC) is designed to test this hypothesis in practice, together with the operators who will use it.

Approach

The idea fits in one simple equation: Risk = likelihood × impact. Today, the control room sees the impact of a possible failure very well. The Moonshot adds the likelihood, based on the actual condition of each asset, so that operators can see which situations deserve their attention first.

Rather than launching a large IT programme, we are taking a deliberately lean, step-by-step route:

• Build on what already exists. We reuse Elia’s existing asset health data and risk calculations instead of developing a new risk model from scratch.
• Make risk visible. Together with an external partner, we are building a lightweight prototype dashboard for a limited part of the grid. It shows asset health, risk scores and a ranking of the most critical failure scenarios.
• Explain, don’t just display. Every ranking comes with a clear answer to the operator’s key question: “Why is this scenario ranked so high?” Trust and clarity are essential for adoption.
• Test it with the people who will use it. Operators are involved from the start through feedback sessions, so the tool fits real control-room workflows.

Asset Management, the Regional Control Centre (RCC) and the National Control Centre (NCC) work side by side in this project, supported by Group Innovation. In a later phase, we also want to close the loop so that operational insights from the control room can flow back to Asset Management and support maintenance and investment decisions.

Results

The Moonshot is now moving from preparation into its Proof of Concept phase. Asset Management and System Operations experts from RCC and NCC jointly defined what the PoC must demonstrate, and what is deliberately left for later. After a competitive selection process, Artelys was chosen to carry out the PoC with us. The Moonshot also connects with work on probabilistic, risk-based grid operation within the Group and across the TSO community.

Next steps

• Kick off the Proof of Concept and prepare the data for a selected part of the grid.
• Build the prototype dashboard and test it with control-room operators.
• Evaluate the results and take a clear go/no-go decision on scaling towards a pilot.
• Explore the feedback loop from System Operations back to Asset Management.

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