FortisBC Inc. (FortisBC) Application for a Certificate of Public ...

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FortisBC Inc. (FortisBC or the Company)
Application for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity
for the Advanced Metering Infrastructure Project
Response to British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC or the Commission)
Information Request (IR) No. 1
Submission Date:
October 5, 2012
Page 239
eliminate the number of crew call backs to areas where they believed power had already been
restored.
The benefit here will be limited and will form part of the Outage Management System business
case.
Response:
102.3 Please explain in detail what is installed/implemented in 2014 for $830 thousand.
FortisBC is considering the acquisition, in 2014/2015 of an Outage Management software
System (OMS) that will leverage the information from the AMI meter, CIS (Customer Information
System) and GIS that will provide additional efficiencies in outage restoration and reporting as
well as enhancing customer service. With an OMS information from each of these systems will
be automated and managed through one tool.
The OMS will compile AMI meter outage information and using the connectivity model of the
distribution system from GIS will predict the individual outage groups and provide information on
the customers involved in each outage area. The OMS will also predict which device in the
distribution system has most likely operated to cause the outage which will allow the System
Control System to dispatch field personnel to the appropriate location. This is in addition to the
AMI-enabled notification of power being off at individual meters. In addition the OMS will allow
for the single point management of the outage and restoration information to allow for
distribution and corporate outage reporting.
Overall benefits in an OMS system include:
• Provide better visibility of the scope and scale of the outage;
• Centralize the outage management process into one tool, from call/AMI data
handling, providing information to the System Control Centre to efficiently respond
and report outage data;
• Enhance the Company’s ability to perform triage during system wide outage and
provide companywide visibility;
• Enhance customer service by providing information to SCC when responding to
customer calls and by providing real time information on outages to the web; and
• Full use of the capabilities of the AMI system by managing and analyzing outage
data from the meters, mapping the outage area, providing “pinging” functionality and
automatically checking to ensure all customers are back on once the power is