Is ‘dirty power’ costing you cash? Smart sensors detect damaging harmonics outside IEEE standards

Bob Marshall is on a mission to prevent electrical fires.

Several years ago, his sister-in-law’s house burned down after a fire sparked in the walls, prompting Marshall, an engineer, to come up with a way to detect the early warning signs. He devised a device called Ting, which plugs into a standard electrical outlet and connects to wifi.

“It is a super smart sensor that monitors all the wiring in the home,” explains Marshall, CEO of energy analytics company Whisker Labs. “We detect loose connections, damaged wires, and arcing that causes electrical fires.”

A Ting sensor. Courtesy: Whisker Labs

Marshall launched the home fire safety technology in 2018 and estimates it prevents about 80% of electrical fires.

“We take 30 million electrical measurements per second in the sensor,” Marshall details. “In the end, it’s far more sophisticated than a smart meter or something like that.”

Over the last six years, more and more Tings have been sold, giving Whisker Labs greater insight into power quality across the country at a very granular level. Marshall says nearly one million of the devices are plugged in across the U.S.

“Basically, the network of Ting sensors monitors the utility grid,” he confirms. “So if we detect a fault on one Ting, then it’s originating inside the house where the Ting is installed. Whereas if 10 Tings detect a fault at the exact same time, then that can’t originate inside of a house.”

“That’s a fault that’s occurring on the grid,” Marshall concludes.

Total harmonic distortion (not just a great name for a band)

Although Ting was initially invented to prevent house fires, as its network expanded and artificial intelligence and machine learning began to take root, another use case for the sensors became abundantly clear- detecting power quality in specific parts of a utility’s grid.

In February, Whisker Labs pushed a software update to its devices to add a new measurement: total harmonic distortion (THD). THD is an evaluation of the harmonic distortion present in a signal, defined as the ratio of the sum of the powers of all harmonic components to the power of the fundamental frequency. It tells you how much a power signal deviates from a pure sine wave by assessing its waveform, indicating the level of distortion in the electrical power supply.

A lower THD value signifies cleaner power and less distortion, while a higher THD value indicates “dirty” or “noisy” power, which is less desirable in electrical systems for a variety of reasons.

“If you have harmonics on the grid, then it causes everything to use more energy than it should because it’s wasted in heat,” Whisker Labs’ CEO explains.

When elevated harmonics are present, Marshall warns, anything with a motor or a compressor like an air conditioner or refrigerator will be subjected to vibration and excess heat, reducing energy efficiency and the lifespan of the appliances.

“Instead of an air conditioner lasting 15 years, it can last seven or eight years if it’s using power that has high harmonics,” he estimates. “It costs consumers money. It costs utilities money, because if their multimillion-dollar transformers at substations have harmonics present, then they’re going to have a shortened life as well.”

The acceptable range of harmonic distortion is defined by IEEE Standard 519-2022. For anything under 1,000 volts, like power delivered to homes at 120 volts, THD within 8% is considered acceptable.

When Whisker Labs started analyzing the THD data enabled by its software update, Marshall quickly discovered a problem he hadn’t set out to solve. Some utilities appear to have power quality issues nobody was aware of, let alone talking about, and a relatively recent surge of distributed energy resources may be to blame.

We have a problem

A national map showing the percentage of homes with total harmonic distortion (THD) greater than 8% in October 2024. Courtesy: Whisker Labs

Ting data, which has been made publicly available, reveals that most ratepayers across the country (about 97%) receive power within industry-acceptable THD limits. However, several utility grids appear to be facing significant power quality challenges.

Ting data indicates most of the Great Lakes region receives power within IEEE’s acceptable range, outside of ComEd in Illinois and Dayton Power and Light in Ohio. Courtesy: Whisker Labs

The most egregious violations of the IEEE standards for acceptable THD are occurring in northeastern Illinois, in Commonwealth Edison territory, according to Ting’s network of sensors. The total number of homes with THD greater than 8% on ComEd’s grid has consistently lingered above 30%, implying more than one million people are overpaying for electricity and risking long-term damage to their appliances.

Whisker Labs’ data shows a high percentage of homes in Commonwealth Edison territory in Illinois have experienced total harmonic distortion this year. Courtesy: Whisker Labs

I reached out to ComEd and presented them with the findings of the Ting network.

“ComEd is committed to providing reliable power delivery and power quality for each of our customers, whether they be residential or commercial and industrial power users,” reads their reply. “This commitment is reinforced each day through the continuous work our engineers and crews complete to maintain one of the most reliable grids in the country. In fact, ComEd was named the most reliable electric utility in the U.S. in 2023 and the most reliable electric utility in the Midwest in 2024 by PA Consulting.”

“ComEd strongly questions the veracity and accuracy of Whisker Lab’s claims because many of the metrics they reference are not recognized by the utility industry and they have refused to share their methodology and original source data with us to better understand their concerns,” the utility’s statement continues. “To help ensure our customers’ power quality and delivery fall within Illinois regulatory standards, ComEd has smart meters deployed with each of our customers to collect real-time data and a power quality team focused on identifying and rectifying power quality issues quickly.”

Whisker Labs maintains its metrics are in accord with industry standards and were developed by organizations like the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). While its data indicates that ComEd does rank in the top third of utilities nationally for power outage performance, it also shows that ComEd’s power quality ranks among the worst in the country across multiple metrics.

Whisker Labs has proactively engaged ComEd and Exelon executives previously and directly provided data in addition to technical and operational details about the application and accuracy of its Ting sensor network. The company says ComEd has been notified more than 300 times of dangerous power conditions their smart meters cannot detect.

“ComEd verified and mitigated the dangerous condition on all these occasions,” Marshall notes. “ComEd service records will support these facts.”

Other trouble spots

The Ting network has identified about ten consistent THD trouble spots in the United States, where 70% of the homes exhibiting harmonics outside the industry-accepted limits are located.

The percentage of homes with THD greater than 8% in the utility regions with the most observed power quality problems. Courtesy: Whisker Labs

The only region comparable to ComEd is located in Colorado, where Xcel Energy subsidiary Public Service Company of Colorado shows power quality concerns.

Fewer homes showed THD greater than 8% in Public Service Company of Colorado territory during the summer months, but previously observed levels are returning. Courtesy: Whisker Labs

Other utilities with more than 10% of homes showing total harmonic distortion outside of IEE’s acceptable range include Washington’s Puget Sound Energy, Public Service Electric & Gas and Atlantic City Electric in New Jersey, Baltimore Gas & Electric in Maryland, and Ohio’s Dayton Power and Light Company.

Marshall says he has contacted several utilities and shared his findings, but so far none have decided to capitalize on the data available.

“I do think there’s a general feeling that they would rather not know,” Whisker Labs’ CEO guesses. “Because if they know, then they might be obligated to do something about it.”

Do you have moderate to severe THD? Distributed energy resources might be causing your symptoms

So what is causing power quality to fluctuate in those trouble areas? It may very well be the growing number of distributed energy resources connected to the grid. Marshall notes solar, wind, and storage generate power in DC and don’t produce a perfect 60-hertz sine wave as thermal generation sources do.

“That power has to be inverted back to that perfect 60-hertz sine wave to be introduced back onto the utility grid, and if there’s a problem with that, then you can introduce harmonics on the grid,” he explains. “This wasn’t as much of a problem years ago, because you had relatively few gigantic generators.”

Marshall believes we are at a pivotal moment in understanding how electrification, increased demand, and distributed energy sources are impacting the grid.

“The grid was not designed to accommodate the stress being placed on it today,” he maintains.

That’s particularly true of the load demands of data centers, which Whisker Labs believes may play a role in power quality in some areas like Northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley,” where swaths of clean energy generation are cropping up.

Ting data showing power quality concerns in some parts of the mid-Atlantic region. The teal colors represent areas where more than 10% of homes have THD above 8%. Courtesy: Whisker Labs

“We definitely see some elevated harmonics in the area of data centers,” Marshall observes.

Ting’s data also indicates geomagnetic solar storms can cause measurable harmonic distortion.

What now?

Whisker Labs has not conducted a national study to interpret what all of this THD data really means, but the company’s CEO hopes somebody does.

“Part of what we want to do is make the data available,” Marshall says. “We want to support utilities to understand what’s going on on their grid.”

Ting’s ability to monitor THD in real-time at the household level grants utilities access to data they can’t get from typical smart meters, at least not yet, which could help them resolve problems faster if utilized.

“Nobody’s ever measured (THD) before, certainly not anywhere close to the scale that we are,” Marshall boasts.

Whisker Labs’ CEO guesses there’s already at least one Ting in every major neighborhood in the United States, but even more are being plugged in. Earlier this year, insurance behemoth State Farm expanded its fire safety program to offer more than 2 million of the sensors to its subscribers for free. State Farm has distributed more than 700,000 of the devices and is adding about 50,000 more each month.

As each Ting finds a home, Whisker Labs gets a closer glimpse at the power quality coming in. More data will mean more insights, which hopefully leads to addressing issues in some places that are costing ratepayers money on their electric bills.

“The beauty is having the data,” Marshall concludes. “Somebody should look at all that.”

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