Novel method of estimating the location and extent of power outage takes advantage of Internet-connected devices as an alternative sensing network.

MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s CyberPow: Cyber Sensing for Power Outage Detection uses pervasive, internet-connected devices as an alternative sensing network to rapidly estimate and map the extent and location of power outages across geographic boundaries. Enabling real-time situational awareness without the need for electric utilities, allowing more timely and effective post-disaster decision making and resource prioritization. It provides a single, easily understood source of power status data in one consistent format. The method, which is complementary to existing solutions and addresses many of their shortcomings, is low cost and easily scalable with cloud computing services. CyberPow has provided real-time results upon request to government responders, such as FEMA and the Massachusetts Air National Guard, during multiple large-scale events to aid response efforts and resource prioritization, such as informing daily search-and-rescue plans. Additionally, CyberPow has the potential to provide multiple market segments and use cases with previously unavailable access to power status data, which can be correlated with other data to enable new insights.