Hurricane-force winds swept across northern Ireland on Dec. 26, 1998. With winds gusting at speeds as high as 109 mph (175 kmph), it was the most extreme storm to hit the country in 70 years.

The winds continued for six hours before finally abating. Damage to the Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) network was the most extensive in the utility's history. The network recorded around 4000 faults, which left more than 160,000 customers without electricity during the storm. Other simultaneous outages peaked at 110,000 customers losing electricity.

NIE began the restoration process immediately. Field crews battled the bad weather to restore power to 100,000 customers before the storm had even abated. Another 32,000 customers were back on-line within 24 hours. However, some customers remained without power until New Year's Day.

Thousands of NIE business and domestic customers endured the loss of supply for several days, generating a highly negative public reaction. Political leaders, media, regulators and customers openly criticized NIE and pressured the utility to ensure performance in any future incident would be significantly improved.

In reality, NIE was well aware that network-management system improvements were necessary. In fact, projects were already in progress to improve fault-outage restoration times. However, the damage to the network infrastructure and the company's deteriorating public image after the storm precipitated its decision to accelerate and expand those projects.

The Problem

A complete review of the existing management systems revealed several areas where business performance needed improvement. One such area was that outages were not easily and immediately identified and diagnosed.

A second issue was that paper-based fault-logging systems were slow due to the manual nature of the process. This was even more evident during storms, when there were high call volumes that often resulted in the duplicate logging of fault events. Consequently, allocating appropriate resources to relevant problems was difficult, and this delayed the restoration of power.

Another problem area during major power outages was that customers often experienced difficulty in contacting NIE because of the call center's high call volume. And even when customers were able to get through, call handlers could not always provide complete information on restoration times. The perception that NIE provided inaccurate and inconsistent communications eroded the customers' trust in the utility. So, the public image also needed to be improved.

Furthermore, the extended loss of essential supplies such as heating and lighting resulted in personal hardship and economic loss to many customers.

NIE concluded that during widespread emergencies or periods of severe weather, the utility was not equipped to offer the world-class service levels to which it aspired. Its performance was simply unacceptable.

The Solution

What would it take to achieve world-class service status? NIE concluded that a fully integrated IT system, which would support centralized real-time dispatch and control operations on the distribution network, was pivotal to achieving the following business objectives:

• Reduce operating costs through manpower reductions and increased efficiency in field operations

• Reduce customer minutes lost (CML) through more accurate fault analysis and faster restoration

• Improve real-time information flow to customers

• Provide personalized service to key customers

• Manage large system emergencies effectively.

The System-Management Project

Within five months of that 1998 hurricane, NIE launched a major project using SPL WorldGroup's Outage & Distribution Management System (OMS/DMS), now the Oracle Utilities Network Management System. For this project, NIE implemented state-of-the-art trouble management.

Engineering Excellence

Customer calls about supply failures on the electrical system could be analyzed to predict the protection device that had operated, and ensure the appropriate resources were scheduled and mobilized as quickly as possible. Concurrently, NIE's three distribution control centers were consolidated into one. The system schematic model was expanded to 33 kV and additional urban networks were created. A switching management functionality was added as well as an interface to the ABB supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system.

To address the call center problems, NIE enhanced the GTX call-handling interface and installed SPL's Web Call Entry as a contingency system. Both the primary and contingency systems have direct access to the OMS/DMS. To coordinate operations more effectively during major system emergencies, NIE created an incident center.

Implementation of OMS

NIE and SPL test-drove the system through increasingly tough trials, declaring it a success once it was capable of handling 7000 calls and 700 switching instructions per hour with all users logged in and actively using the system.

In December 1999, the trouble-management functionality went live with a full rollout to all locations by April 2000. The switching-management functionality soon followed, which allowed the three distribution control centers to be closed and a new single distribution control center to go live in August 2002. This significantly reduced manning levels, but at the same time increased operational efficiency.

NIE's control center staff genuinely praise the flexibility of the SPL OMS/DMS system, especially during emergency escalations. The real-time switching on the network model has improved the information provided on faults, and because control engineers can configure the system to match workload, the utility can respond sooner and more effectively to incidents and outages.

Simple organizational changes have also helped increase efficiency in operations. For instance, by locating the dispatch, control and incident centers in the same building, it is easier to develop a more streamlined approach to incident management. However, engineering excellence has not meant increasing the amount of staff employed for each task. Rather, it has optimized NIE's ability to get appropriately skilled staff to the right place in a minimal amount of time.

As mentioned previously, the NIE OMS/DMS was implemented around two major areas of functionality: trouble management and switching management.

The trouble-management functionality is called into action in response to customer calls and information from the SCADA system. SPL's OMS uses the reported details from the SCADA system, as well as customer calls, to analyze the number and types of customers affected by the outages and to identify any other parts of the electrical system that might be directly or indirectly impacted. It prioritizes restoration options based on factors that match clearly defined business objectives at NIE, such as safety, critical customer needs and customer standards.

The OMS also enables the control engineers to optimize restoration time by helping identify specific switches that, when opened or closed, restore power to both the highest-priority category and highest number of customers.

Operational managers also rely on the OMS to help in the management logistics regarding the material and human resources that are required in the field. The deployment of resources on a geographical basis is aided by the critical information provided by the OMS system that summarizes the number of faults and the associated degrees of damage.

Using this data, the control engineers, dispatch staff and operational staff can make more-precise restoration plans and, therefore, communicate more reliable information to customers, the media and other external parties that need to be kept informed on the progress of the restoration efforts.

The switching-management functionality enables the control engineers to prepare and test switching plans in advance. This is valid for both planned maintenance and emergency isolations. These switching sequence tests run in a study mode that allows control engineers to see the results of their switching actions on the simulated system before deployment on the real electrical system. This helps eliminate switching errors that could otherwise delay restoration times or, during planned outages, could lead to unnecessary customer supply interruptions.

Enhanced worker security was implemented using the switching-management functionality of OMS, which tracks the work that is currently being performed in the field — where it is being performed and by whom. This functionality is used in the case of regular maintenance work, field testing, and also in tracking areas where control has been delegated to the field workers.

Performance

The underlying software functionality, which is used in both trouble management and switching management, dynamically calculates the areas of the electrical system that are energized, de-energized and have parallel feeds. It tracks the areas that have been earthed and any locations where jumpers and mobile generators have been installed. This is critical information so that the control engineers can be constantly aware of the exact status of the electrical system.

Control engineers can navigate through the OMS/DMS using the search, zoom and filter facilities, which enable them to examine details of the electrical diagram where work is being carried out. This capability significantly reduces the need to reference paper maps and diagrams. The electrical diagrams used for this functionality were derived from the NIE geographic information system (GIS) as part of the set-up process. These diagrams are updated daily within the OMS/DMS as changes occur in the network due to construction and maintenance activities.

In addition to the graphical pictures used by control engineers, the OMS/DMS system uses GIS data to track how each piece of equipment within the electrical system is connected to the others and, ultimately, how each individual customer is supplied with electricity.