Bentley Systems Technology Predicts Grid Failures Before the Storm Hits

• 9 February 2026
• Construction Focus
• 895 Views

As extreme weather events continue to expose the vulnerabilities of an aging electrical grid, Bentley Systems is deploying advanced “digital twin” technology to transform how utilities prepare for disasters.

By utilizing its Power Line Systems (PLS) software, Bentley can now predict exactly which poles and wires will fail under specific weather conditions, allowing for surgical, proactive repairs.

Current safety codes often allow distribution lines (poles under 60 feet) to bypass extreme weather requirements. This creates a cycle where utilities replace downed poles with the same undersized components that just failed.

Otto Lynch, Vice President at Bentley Systems and head of PLS, said that the industry must move toward a “predictive maintenance” model similar to aviation.

“We can model the entire grid and stress-test it against any weather scenario. The software instantly shows which structures will fail—and where—showing red blobs on a heat map,” said Lynch.

Bentley’s integrated software suite offers a granular look at infrastructure health. It creates a virtual replica of every tower, crossarm, and wire, factoring in the physics of how materials react to ice, wind, and heat.

Besides, instead of multi-million dollar capital projects, the software can identify if a failure can be prevented by simply swapping out a single steel member or bracket. Moreover, structural analysis that used to take days can now be performed on miles of transmission lines in minutes.

While 98% of new transmission lines are designed with PLS software, modeling the millions of local distribution poles has historically been too labor-intensive. Bentley is bridging this gap through its acquisition of Talon Aerolytics.

By combining drone imagery with machine learning, Bentley aims to automate the creation of engineering models. This workflow interprets drone data to identify components and automatically builds a PLS-CADD model, potentially accelerating the modeling process from one structure per hour to hundreds.

“The tools exist to make this grid reliable. We can find the vulnerabilities and fix them before the next ice storm or hurricane… the alternative is what we saw in late January,” Lynch added.

• Technology and Engineering
• Transmission line