CoServ Electric, a not-for-profit utility co-op serving Northern Texas for more than 65 years, has gone into production with Responder from Miner & Miner as its outage management system (OMS). The co-op serves 105,000 electric, retail, and business customers in a service area including parts of Collin, Cooke, Denton, Grayson, Tarrant, and Wise counties.

CoServ implemented ArcFM in 2003 for management of its electric distribution network. Adding Responder into its enterprise GIS solution has allowed it to leverage existing data and systems to provide quick, accurate predictions for efficient power restoration during outages. To ensure customer information remains accurate and current, Responder has been integrated with CoServ’s CIS.

Integrations with both Coserv’s SCADA and IVR systems allow for a dual approach to reporting and response. The SCADA interface automatically enters SCADA-reported outages into Responder and displays them to system operators. Customer incident calls are passed directly from the IVR to Responder, and the IVR uses information from Responder to provide outage status information to callers and perform automated callbacks as necessary.

CoServ went into production with Responder in August 2005. The electric operations group, with up to five operators, employs the technology to locate outages and dispatch crews.

“Responder and its integrations provided key efficiencies, allowing our Control Center to deliver more effective power restoration and crew safety,” said John Long, manager of information services for CoServ.