Outage Management System
Dr. Vikas Singh Bhadoria
Contents
• Introduction
• Functions of OMS
• Requirements of OMS
• Benefits of OMS
Where – does the utility Why – does the utility
know where the power know the cause?
Customer outage has occurred?
Need to Know
What – does the utility When – does the utility
know how to fix it? know when it’s going to
be restored?
Introduction
Outage management systems or OMS are a variety of computer-aided systems which are used by
electrical distribution systems.
They are primarily used by the grid and distributed system supervisors to return power to the grid.
An outage management system is network management software that can restore the network
model after an outage.
Outage management systems are integrated tightly, resulting in timely and accurate actions along
with supervisory control.
Outage management systems are not only capable of performing restoration activities related to
service, but also capable of tracking, displaying and grouping outages.
Functions of OMS
Facility planning of systems such as transformer, fuse, recloser, breakers and other kinds of
safety devices.
Efficient planning of maintenance and curative efforts along with the prioritization of grid
restoration activities depending upon emergency devices, location, and scale of outages.
Collecting and communicating accurate records of outages, their consequences and affected a
number of customers.
Estimating maintenance times and schedules.
Assigning crews and deciding number of members in each kind of crew.
Requirements for Implementing OMS
• The main foundation of typical outage management systems lies in having efficient
networking of distributed systems.
• Having a robust model network is vital to having strong outage management systems.
GIS is fundamental in establishing this model network.
• By recording the location of all the support calls made for outages, analysis engines of
OMS can predict future outages more efficiently.
• Having strong CIS is also a prerequisite for having outage management systems. Since
most outage service calls are handled by the consumer support department, it makes
complete sense to establish an automated CIS in conjunction with OMS.
• For such systems to work, it is important to keep track of all the customers and account
for those who are not directly connected to the systems (also known as "fuzzies").
Requirements for Implementing OMS
• Having automated consumer handling technologies such as IVR as
mentioned above can be established in order to streamline the
operations of OMS by automating the process of consumer-end
communication and real-time alert generation. For efficient and
advanced outage management systems one can install advanced
automatic meter reading systems which are equipped with outage
detection and safety capabilities.
• It is a common practice to combine outage management systems with
other computer-aided systems such as SCADA which provide
automated monitoring and management of electrical systems.
• Outage management systems identify outages and provide instant
alerts. They also record the history of outages throughout the
operations and provide real-time insight into the systems.
• OMS systems also provide customer assistance by alerting them
about outages and status of repairs.
• OMS systems usually work in tandem with GIS or geographical
information systems, CIS or customer information systems and call
handling systems such as IVR (interactive voice response).
Features
• Provides supervisors with an estimated timeline of restoration
• Reports the actual cause of the outage
• Provides accurate information about the extent of the outage and its
impact on customers and their management
• Prioritizes restoration efforts and management of resources upon
outages
The benefits of outage management software are:
Prioritization of resources and planning involved in outage management software results in reduced outages
and faster recovery.
Customer relationship is improved due to better management of outage issues.
Because of the tracking involved, there is better prediction of outages, allowing them to be handled properly.
Operational efficiency is increased compared to situations where an outage management system is not in
place.
Operational visibility across the network increases greatly with the use of an outage management system.
Decision making is faster for supervisors because of the reports provided by the application, even in cases of
complex outages.
Contd....
Reduction in duration of outages and maintenance.
Efficient prediction of outages and outage locations.
Improved consumer handling and customer satisfaction.
Better media relations through efficient outage data recording and clear visibility into restorative efforts.
A significant reduction in the number of complaints registered by end-users. Additionally, the frequency of random
outages can be reduced through the efficient setup of robust outage management systems.
Improved operations of regulators thanks to the planning and scheduling capabilities of restorative programs
• https://www.techopedia.com/definition/30651/outage-
management-system-oms
• https://www.phoenixenergygroup.com/blog/an-overview-of-outage-
management-systems
• https://www.opuc.on.ca/outage-management-system/
Thank You
For similar content Please
Subscribe the Channel
