How Endeavour eliminated 300 manual inspection hours in the face of floods
"Using Neara's platform, we were able to simulate the impact of major flooding to help restore power to affected customers in a safe and timely manner. We eliminated 300 hours of inspection time and targeted our response to the customers that needed our assistance the most. "
Scott Ryan, Chief Asset and Operating Officer, Endeavour Energy
Unprecedented 1-in-50-year floods — and no way to diagnose the damage fast enough.
In March 2021 and subsequently March 2022, Greater Western Sydney was inundated by unprecedented 1-in-50-year floods, resulting in significant customer outages and damage to power infrastructure across Endeavour Energy's network.
Endeavour Energy's network spans more than 60,000 km across a service territory of 25,000 sq km, with more than 430,000 power poles, 207 major substations, and 32,600 distribution substations. Millions of people rely on Endeavour Energy to provide a safe and reliable electricity supply around the clock.
As the flood emergency unfolded, the utility needed an urgent solution to diagnose and minimize the flood's impact on customers, communities, and network health. Traditional inspection methods would have required weeks to assess the scale of the impact.
A live flood model stood up in 48 hours.
Together, the Endeavour Energy and Neara teams moved fast. Within 48 hours of expanding the engagement to support flood mitigation, they activated a real-time rising floodwaters model reflecting live flood sensors and open-source government data.
Emergency response, control room, and planning teams leveraged the model to respond quickly to the critical period — strategically de-energizing parts of the network, accurately isolating electricity supply ahead of areas being inundated, or where floodwater brought people too close to live power lines.
As the floodwater subsided, Endeavour Energy used Neara's flood mapping functionality to measure flood clearance risks at the span and network levels, prioritizing inspections to restore power to customers safely and quickly, and to understand potential hazards before sending emergency crews into flooded areas. As a result, the team was able to improve network reliability, restore power faster to affected communities, and eliminate 300 hours of manual inspection time.
300 hours of manual inspection eliminated. Power restored faster.
Moving forward, Neara's platform has enabled Endeavour Energy to precisely model the impact of future potential severe flood events on the network, customers, and communities. This relies on ground topology data and water level data, which can be brought in and overlaid onto the network model.
This enables Endeavour Energy to identify at-risk areas under different flood scenarios and perform appropriate grid hardening activities to bolster reliability and safety for its customers. The utility is reducing redundant truck rolls and focusing fieldwork on the highest-priority risks, improving efficiency and safety.
For regulators, the physics-based outputs provide quantifiable, defensible evidence of risk reduction, tying mitigation efforts directly to measurable reliability improvements.