A survey of reliability reporting practices

A majority of states require electric utilities to regularly report reliability statistics. For utilities where reliability reporting is a regulatory obligation, the systems and processes behind these statistics are also of regulatory concern. This is especially true since variations in systems and processes can have a material impact on results, and can make statistical comparisons misleading. This paper presents the survey results of twenty-two large investor-owned utilities in the United States, all with reliability reporting obligations. Based on these surveys, comparisons are made in the following categories: event capture, start time, customer count, step restoration, restoration time, verification of events, process for computing reliability indices, and escalated events. An overall comparison is also provided, and the paper ends with a discussion on industry trends.