Although power outages are a hectic and stressful part of any utility operation, Middle Tennessee Electric Membership Corp. (MTEMC) is now better equipped to handle any size or scale of outage, thanks to its commitment to cutting-edge technology. Within the last 18 months, MTEMC has made considerable investments in implementing an advanced outage management system (OMS) to provide members more reliable service and a faster response time for restoring power when outages do occur.

For example, in January 2010, unique winter weather conditions hit the MTEMC service area, producing icing — a rare occurrence for utilities in Tennessee. The icing caused erratic outages for more than 5000 members, with the potential for more damage in the days that followed.

If this same incident had occurred a year earlier, several MTEMC staff would have had to report to the control center immediately. In response to the outage, control room operators would have been answering telephone calls from members reporting outages in their area. District supervisors would have been talking on radios, communicating with repair crews trying to locate the cause of the outage. And company executives would have been searching for data and estimates to give to members and media, all of whom would have wanted to know when power would be restored.

But this January, many of these MTEMC staff did not need to report to the control center. Instead, most were able to remain at home and monitor the situation on a laptop and cell phone. In fact, during these ice outages, only the usual two to three employees occupied the MTEMC control room, just as on any routine Saturday afternoon. Without the need for additional help from on-call staff, calls from members were still answered, vital information was collected, outage estimates were calculated, repair crews were dispatched and power was restored to everyone within 18 hours.

So what changed to create such a difference in the way the utility handles outages? On Sept. 1, 2009, MTEMC implemented an advanced OMS, improving the utility's response to emergency outages as well as its day-to-day operations.

The Need for a Change

MTEMC is Tennessee's largest rural electric cooperative and the sixth largest in the United States. The utility supplies power to more than 180,000 businesses and residents in four counties south of Nashville, representing some of the fastest-growing counties in the entire nation. Like many other utilities, MTEMC understands that customers measure a utility by its ability to provide uninterrupted service, and when an outage does occur, the utility is remembered for how quickly it can restore power.

Prior to implementing an OMS system, MTEMC relied on a manual process for handling outages. Although this method worked appropriately for small day-to-day outages affecting a minimal amount of members, the manual way became too overwhelming and laborious for larger outages affecting thousands of members.

As severe weather outages became more frequent and its membership grew, MTEMC realized it was time to change its methods for responding to outages. Its manual methods of identifying, locating and dispatching crews were becoming less efficient and more costly, prompting the utility to invest in more advanced operations technology, including OMS.

Selecting an OMS

Prior to investing in an OMS, MTEMC implemented other automated software solutions, including supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), advanced weather technology, geospatial information systems (GIS), customer information systems (CIS), interactive voice response (IVR) and automated vehicle locators (AVL). Each of these solutions is extremely useful in day-to-day operations, so it was important the addition of an OMS complemented existing efforts and used the multiple components already in place.

MTEMC had already been working with Telvent, using its ArcFM GIS solution to more efficiently maintain and manage grid information and its advanced weather information services to help plan and prepare for weather-related outages. After evaluating several options, MTEMC decided to implement Telvent's OMS Responder, an automated OMS that identifies the likely cause of an outage based on input from the IVR, field crews and SCADA.

The true value of an advanced OMS is found in an effective integration of multiple automated solutions. At MTEMC, a combination of IVR, AVL, GIS and OMS has significantly improved the utility's ability to more efficiently handle outage calls from members, identify the likely cause of an outage and dispatch repair crews to restore power.