Third Benchmarking Report on Quality of Electricity Supply

1.6.2 Rules for recording long interruptionsIt clearly emerges from the survey that the majority of the regulators have not established orapproved rules for recording interruptions. There are only eight countries out of 20 surveyedwhere recording protocols are in place (Italy, Czech Republic, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Hungary,Great Britain, Sweden). These protocols address issues such as identification of interruptions,technology employed, assessment of the number of consumers affected, and definition of interruptioncauses (in general including that of force majeure). In Italy, Spain, Great Britain, Hungary,and Portugal the recording protocol was set by the regulator. In Norway the protocol (FASIT) wasdeveloped by a branch organization and is referred to by the regulator. Sweden has guidelines forthe calculation of SAIDI and SAIFI.It is relevant to note that all the eight countries cited above have introduced standards and/or incentive/penaltiesregimes linked to the number and/or the duration of long interruptions and/or energynot supplied. The rules for recording long interruptions are, in fact, the basis of these regulatory provisions:they ensure that all interruptions are recorded, and that the recording methodology is homogeneousacross the country. This enables a fair and correct implementation of the financial incentiveschemes. Hence, it is of concern that Ireland, having adopted an incentive and penalty regimestates that no recording protocol has been implemented.Recording rules establish an obligation for all (or at least all the major) companies to register continuitydata. Secondly, they indicate which data are required for a correct identification of an incident.Usually these include the time interval of the supply interruption, its cause, the network device whereit originated, the affected installations and the number of consumers involved.One of the most relevant issues is the logging of incidents. Depending on the available technologyon the network an incident is logged when i) a customer (or other person) first contacts thecompany to advise of no-supply, an abnormality or suspected abnormality; ii) there is an alarm onSCADA indicating a loss of supply, abnormality or suspected abnormality; or iii) an employee oragent identified the existence of a loss of supply, abnormality or suspected abnormality. There isusually no obligation of automatic logging of the incidents, but, for instance, regulators in Italy andPortugal explicitly require companies to remotely control the whole HV and MV distribution networks(for each HV and MV feeder).A second issue is the identification of the consumers affected by the interruption. Norway Portugaland Great Britain (see Additional Information 1.4) require companies to integrate the customerinformation database with the topology of the network (connectivity model). At the present time Italy(see Additional Information 1.5) and Spain have rules for estimating the number of LV consumersinvolved in an interruption; however, both countries are requiring companies to be able to identifysingle customers in a few years time (in Spain the process is expected to be completed by 200611In Norway data recordings are referred to delivery points. A delivery point is a medium or high-voltage end-user or a distributiontransformer. In total 121 600 points.13<strong>Third</strong> <strong>Benchmarking</strong> <strong>Report</strong> on Quality of Electricity Supply – 2005 · Chapter 1