annual-and-sustainability-report-2014

Developments during the year | Sustainable consumptionInvestments in high security of supplyEnergy supply with minimal disruptions is a fundamentalrequire ment for all electricity network customers, andevery year Vattenfall invests large sums in improvingsecurity of supply.In 2014 alone Vattenfall invested more than SEK 5 billion in electricitynetworks in Sweden and Germany as part of its efforts to improvesecurity of supply, of which SEK 4 billion pertained to Sweden. A largeshare of investments in Sweden pertain to improving the resilienceof power lines to weather. This includes measures such as insulatingoverhead power lines or replacing them with undergroundcables. The aim of these investments is to reduce the averagefrequency of outages and the average outage duration, as measuredby the System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) andaverage duration of outages, as measured by the System AverageInterruption Duration Index (SAIDI). For a description of definitions,see the glossary on pages 159–160.SAIFI (number/customer) 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014Sweden 2.4 3.1 2.6 2.1 2.4Germany 0.25 0.23 0.27 0.29 0.20SAIDI (minutes/customer)Sweden 168 349 217 183 177Germany 13 11 12 13 15Differences in the conditions and character of the electricity networks in thecountries are reflected in the metrics SAIDI and SAIFI. The Swedish electricitynetwork covers both urban networks and countryside networks, whileVattenfall’s German network, in Berlin, is an urban network consisting almostexclusively of underground cables. Large parts of the Swedish electricitynetwork are serviced by overhead power lines, which makes it more susceptibleto outages under harsh weather conditions.The figures in the tables above pertain to Vattenfall Eldistribution AB’s localnetworks, and the values pertain to customer impact, including the impact ofoverhead power lines. The figures for Germany pertain to Vattenfall’s electricitynetwork company Stromnetz Berlin GmbH, in Berlin.Crisis preparedness ensures security of supplyExternal circumstances in the form of storms, heavy snowfall, orlightning strikes, for example, have a major impact on Vattenfall’sdistribution operations. This is especially true in Sweden, which hasa vast network of overhead power lines across the countryside.Trees that fall on power lines can cause power outages, whichmust be addressed promptly.To be prepared for situations like this, Vattenfall has a crisispreparedness plan in place, with priority on being able to quicklymobilise efforts while continuing other operations without disruption.The company’s major outage organisation is deployed incases of disruptions in the electric grid that affect many customersand where the regular organisation is found to be insufficient.An example of Vattenfall’s crisis preparedness plan in actionwas the major forest fire in Västmanland in Sweden in late July2014, which was one of the worst in modern time in Sweden. Thefire ravaged an area of 13,800 hectares, and as the network owner,Vattenfall played a central role in the fire-fighting work. At mostsome 900 Vattenfall customers lost their power, and more than halfof these were affected by a prolonged power outage.32 Vattenfall Annual and sustainability report 2014