NEW ORLEANS (June 03, 2025) — The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) today awarded Edison International and its subsidiary Southern California Edison (SCE) with the 97th Edison Award for SCE's Advanced Waveform Anomaly Recognition (AWARE) system. Presented annually and selected by a panel of former energy industry executives, the Edison Award is the electric power industry’s highest honor. The award was presented in New Orleans during EEI 2025, the institute’s annual conference and thought leadership forum.
“On behalf of EEI and our member companies, I am proud to congratulate Edison International and Southern California Edison for winning this year’s Edison Award,” said EEI interim President and CEO Pat Vincent-Collawn. “By developing innovative uses for artificial intelligence to help prevent power outages, Edison International and Southern California Edison are leading by example and showcasing the incredible ingenuity at the heart of our industry’s efforts to enhance the safety, reliability, and resilience of America’s energy grid.”
“By proactively identifying electric system issues, AWARE is making the grid safer and more reliable for our communities,” said Pedro J. Pizarro, president and CEO of Edison International, parent company of SCE. “As homes and businesses increasingly rely on clean energy, using advanced technology can help reduce the number and length of outages and repairs. When we identify and fix problems faster, customers win with more affordable, available, and reliable electricity.”
The AWARE system supplements advanced sensors and other applications already used by many electric companies with state-of-the-art physics-based artificial intelligence (AI) models and machine learning technologies. The resulting grid anomaly detection and proactive fault management technology can help to identify and locate problematic equipment on SCE’s circuits before a failure occurs, mitigating outages and helping to keep customers and communities safe and energized.
While many smart grid technologies use electric waveforms to detect faults, the energy grid’s increasing complexity and the rise of customer-sited distributed energy resources can add noise that is difficult for traditional detection programs to sift through. The AWARE system uses AI and machine learning to identify the unique waveforms for different kinds of equipment failures. It also can help to pinpoint where failures take place within SCE’s service territory, accelerating restoration times and supporting safer and more targeted restoration efforts.
Click here to learn about this year’s winner of the International Edison Award.
