Patent ID: 8494830

Claim:
A system for making real-time predictions about an arc flash event on an electrical system, the system comprising: a data acquisition component communicatively connected to a sensor configured to acquire real-time data output from the electrical system; and an analytics server communicatively connected to the data acquisition component, the analytics server comprising a virtual system modeling engine configured to generate predicted data output for the electrical system using a virtual system model of the electrical system, an analytics engine configured to monitor the real-time data output and the predicted data output of the electrical system, and an arc flash simulation engine configured to use the virtual system model updated based in the real-time data to forecast an aspect of the arc flash event; wherein the analytics server is configured to perform steps comprising updating the virtual system model based on the real-time data output, switching all observable models in the virtual system model to an ON position or OFF position, transferring all uninterrupted power supplies (UPS) equipped with a transfer switch in the virtual system model that is in the by-pass mode, setting all unobservable motors in the virtual system model to the ON position in the virtual model, calculating arcing energy for all significant locations in the virtual system model, setting all unobservable motors in the virtual system model to the OFF position, calculating arcing energy for all significant locations in the virtual system model, comparing the two calculations for each significant location, and storing the highest calculated arcing energy for each significant location.