Multiply the Benefits of Outage Management by Integrating with Other Systems
Robert L. Trotter
Executive Consultant
356 West Ash Avenue
Decatur, IL 62526
Tel: 217-877-3759;
Email: trotter@logica.com
Mandates such as Customer Choice have altered the focus of utility regulators from the review of mundane rate cases to involvement in the reliability of service being supplied to energy consumers. Energy distribution companies
are today, or soon may be, delivering energy to customers that are owned by third parties. Consumers, regulators, and third parties will increasingly exert pressure for timely outage resolution. A small, localized outage now represents
a public relations issue. Outages associated with a significant weather-related disaster such as an ice storm or hurricanes create a highly visible news event. Whether the problem is small or large, many different parties will expect energy distributors to treat every outage event in a reliable, structured and cost-effective manner.
How can an energy distribution company be sure it has the right tools and processes to
manage outage restoration? First, the organization needs to recognize the benefits that
such tools and process improvements can make. Such as:
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Reduce recovery time through the most effective use of resources
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Reduce operational costs with efficient planning and accurate reporting of completed
restoration work
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Increase customer satisfaction by restoring service sooner
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Build customer confidence by responding reliably to each event
Overview of Outage Restoration
This is a good point to discuss how utilities look at outages and the processes that are
used to restore service. Many utilities have different processes depending on size,
location and type of outage to the electrical system. There are, however, some common
things that apply to most of the utilities. There are generally three categories of outages
as defined by utilities. They are:
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Small outages handled in a routine day to day manner
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Intermediate outages that may require movement of resources
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Large system outages that require resources from outside the utility.
The following description of these categories is a generalization but should help in
looking at this as an industry model.
Small Outages
Small outages are those that are handled on a daily basis by the people and equipment
that are on hand in the local district. These outages are often single or a few customers.
The utility receives a call from one or more of the customers and determines the probable
cause and dispatches resources to restore the service. This can also include a number of
outages that are caused by system failures or local thunderstorms. Some utilities use this
category to define outages of up to as many as 20,000 customers.
