How Do Utility Managers Restore Power Shutdowns?

August 23, 2021

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Utilities around the world set out strong strategies to avoid falling in the situation of blackouts, however the situation is inescapable.

Let’s assume. Utility managers gain success in predicting and eliminating 80% of total outages even before it happens. Now, what about the remaining twenty percent?

Indeed, timely restoration is the only alternative that keeps up the smooth functioning. And, for curious minds who wish to enlighten themselves about the power restoration process- our post appears as a brilliant guide. Continue reading, significant information awaits.

Understanding Causes And Restoration of Power Outages

Main causes

Heavy wind storms, fallen giant trees, and shattered limbs are the major reasons behind sudden power shutdowns.

Customers must understand that utilities need a good chunk of time to repair damaged lines, poles, transformers, etc. However, reporting the power outage issues is their definite right.

Secondary Causes

Natural hazards are not always the reason, utilities themselves also encounter certain troubles that lead to unexpected outages. Even though these circumstances are quite rare, utilities often have a hard time during restoration.

Outage Restoration

Whenever an outage occurs, utilities walk down to a time-consuming and challenging process to resolve the issue as fast as they can.

But, very few people know that outage-type has a great impact on the restoration system. If you are also one among them, then continue reading.

Restoration after Windstorm damage
Restoration after power failure

Steps Involved In Electricity Restoration Process

Step 1: Field Examination

Step 2: Fixing the damage

Step:3 Resuming the power supply

Field examination

A single substation supplies power to the thousands of consumers (including domestic, industrial, etc). So, utilities tend to give a lot more attention towards its proper functioning.

Immediately after the power outage occurs, senior coordinators send technician crew to the substations where they perform a quick checkout and diagnose the issues. Fortunately, transmission lines or distribution systems seldom encounter any trouble unless heavy wind waves, rain, and earthquakes hit.

Fixing The Issues

When the crew fails to identify any fault at the substation level, half of their confusion automatically vanishes. Their next target becomes the local distribution units and static electricity transmission machines such as transformers. However, a separate team checks supply lines to uncover faults in that section.

Ofcourse, this process requires ample time for executing various bypass methods in an appropriate time scale. Therefore, utility managers seek patience among customers.

Resuming the power supply

Once the exact fault is determined and resolved, the last action technicians perform is resuming the paused power supply. Despite being the final step, it is indeed complicated on certain points. The whole responsibility of bringing power back to the meter might seem like typical repair, but that’s not the scenario.

Repair crew don’t leave the substation until they get confirmation from the back office about successful restoration. They also make sure that every equipment is in pristine condition to eliminate potential frequent obstructions.

How Do Modern Utilities Deal with outages?

Modern utilities embrace innovation that promotes automation and digitization. They no longer rely on manual inspections, time-taking analysis, or guesswork that used to be some major causes behind utility companies’ incapabilities of solving outages within the estimated deadline.

One solid example of power restoration automation is UFO, which is a product from renowned utility analytics company- AriesPro.

UFO stands for unified field operation and it’s dedicated to optimizing the operational capacities of power utilities. Aside from this, the product works as a robust monitoring system in terms of keeping a sharp eye on whole activities,starting from energy production, to feeder level, to lines, and upto power supply to consumers.

Therefore, UFO plays a crucial role in the power restoration process since it provides engineers with accurate data and information required to solve various troubles.

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Wrapping It up

The information in our blog is just a quick glimpse of how utilities work when customers report power outages, the whole picture goes beyond average people’s perception. Although we have given our best to make this post informative enough, technical experts or professionals from the electric industry may illustrate a clearer story than us. Of Course, we are not competing with anyone. All we envision is a brighter tomorrow.

Don’t be hesitant.Share your ideas and sights that you think can be a part of our upcoming posts. Our Comment section awaits your response.