[UC11] Unserved Energy Due To Outages Analysis

The Utility Problem

Outages and reliability are essential metrics for utility companies. Electricity outages have three significant negative impacts on electricity distribution utilities: 

1. Customers become dissatisfied with their service; 
2. Regulators impose restrictions and fines for frequent and long-duration outages
3. Utilities lose revenue due to unused energy during the outage.

 Although there are different stakeholders for each of the three ramifications, these are all significant concerns for the utility. 

Depending on the utility, lost revenue is calculated either through estimates or is not calculated. To estimate lost revenue, the utility must determine which customers are affected by the outage. The utility then has to estimate the lost energy usage based on the date, time and historical data. To calculate SAIDI, SAIFI and other outage metrics that regulators are concerned with, they will either have to use a different outage management system or do another manual calculation. 

These negative impacts further strain the corporation, requiring time focused on manual calculations rather than automating the solution. In addition, poor customer satisfaction can lead to reduced revenue and is becoming ever more threatening, with distributed energy becoming increasingly common. Finally, regulatory action will result in fines and negatively impact the utility’s reputation. Overall, outages are a critical issue for utilities and calculating unserved energy can help utility executives make decisions for future reliability upgrades. 

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