What is The Outage data Initiative (ODI)? #OutageDataInitiative

  • An effort to standardize the exchange of customer power outage status with other utilities, mutual assistance organizations, and local/state/federal emergency management agencies in support of enhanced response and restoration activities.

  • Working with the Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security & FEMA, we have engaged with electric utilities, industry vendors and emergency managers to establish state-wide pilot projects with expansion plans for national and international adoption.

  • For more information, please contact: OutageDataInitative@agileinclusion.com

THE NARRATIVE:

In the event of a disaster, emergency managers and all key decision makers, need to have real time situational awareness in order to be able to make the timely and informed decisions on how to best deploy resources to help save lives and minimize damage and suffering for their communities. Obtaining that level of situational awareness requires access to critical essential elements of information such as power status, transportation and road status, weather forecast, damage impacts and so on, with power outage data being the first among equals. 

It is self-evident that power drives everything else.  Nearly all critical infrastructure services are dependent upon power and the loss of power creates a ripple effect across all elements of society. It goes without saying then that serious power outages severely hurt the ability of emergency management to respond to catastrophic events in a timely and effective way. The prolonged loss of power ultimately can seriously impact both short term and long term recovery efforts.

THE SUMMARY:

THE OUTAGE DATA INITIATIVE:

  • Working with EPRI, utilities, regulators, emergency management

  • Voluntary open standard for publishing power outage and restoration information

  • Puts already public data in a common, structured, easy-to-use format

  • Empowers utilities, emergency management agencies and other first responders with a common operating picture for widespread events

THE CALL TO ACTION / NEXT STEPS:

  1. Utilities and/or emergency managers involved with preparedness, response and recovery should reach out to us at: OutageDataInitiative@agileinclusion.com or Scott.Sternfeld@agileinclusion.com

  2. We will work with you to plan and conduct a 2-3 day workshop around the Energy Lifeline / Emergency Support Function 12 (ESF-12) with all relevant partners at the local, county, state and/or federal level.

  3. Implementation: (Optional, but recommended)

    1. Utilities: We will work with YOUR vendors to implement the new industry standard for “publishing” customer outage data.

      [The timeframe is largely dependent on whether your vendor is already a participating partner, but could range from a few days to a few weeks.]

    2. Partners: We will work with YOUR vendors to “subscribe” to this vendor-independent, common format.

      [This can typically be accomplished in a few hours to a few days.]

  4. Training and Exercises:

    1. We can provide you with a “Simulation for Customer Power Outages” that will provide a ‘Common Operating Picture’ for all participants in the exercise. By leveraging a common tool, the public safety value of the shared data can begin to be understood and expanded.

    2. We will provide you with an “After Action Report” (AAR) identifying gaps or opportunities for enhanced collaboration.

Outage Data Initiative Partners:

Foundational Partners:

  • Department of Energy

  • Oak Ridge NAtional Lab (ORNL)

  • Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)

  • White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP): 2014

    ODI Northwest (ODIN) Pilot Project:

  • SEATTLE CITY LIGHT

  • Planet Risk

  • Washington Department of Commerce

  • Washington Emergency Management Division

Original 16 Utilities:

  • Seattle City Light

  • Exelon: ComEd, Baltimore G&E

  • Avangrid (formerly Iberdrola): Central Maine Power, NYSE&G, RG&E, United Illuminating

  • Emera Maine

  • National Grid

  • Hart EMC

  • CPS Energy

  • Duke Energy

  • Florida Power and Light

  • Pacific Gas and Electric

  • San Diego Gas & Electric

  • Southern California Edison

Vendor Partners

  • DATACAPABLE

  • ESRI

  • oracle

  • Kubra

  • Hexagaon

  • Milsoft

  • NISC

  • GE

  • Alstom

  • Siemens

  • ABB

  • Futura

  • {Your company here……}

 

MEDIA / MENTIONS:

ODI in the news:

Presentations:

More coming ….

Storm/Outage Management:

Miscellaneous:

USERS AND USE CASES:

Utility Storm Managers:

Use Case: Visibility of outages from surrounding utilities on a single map

Use Case: Enable mutual assistance crews (from other utilities) to be able to get electronic work orders with software platforms they are already trained on.

Outage Prediction / Modeling:

Use Case: Utilities can gain advanced warning and valuable planning time based on the impact of storms on neighboring utilities.

Use Case: Improving the accuracy and granularity of impact predictions for future storms (based on higher resolution models and data).

Emergency Managers:

Use Case: Increased visibility into restoration activities; Ability to offer additional information, resources or coordination to utility crews.

Use Case: ‘Resource Typing’: Ability to identify needed resources for response and recovery.

Healthcare:

Use Case: Hospitals, Nursing homes, assisted living facilities, skilled nursing facilities can better monitor the estimated time of restoration (ETR) against their Emergency Action Plans

  • Compare estimated time of restoration against number of estimated hours using generator power. THIS IS ACTIONABLE!

    • Locate additional fuel sources; Rule out supply chain issues and dependencies

    • Evacuation planning and timetable!

Telecommunication:

Use Case: Utility restoration crews rely on telecommunications, and telecom crews rely on utility power!

  • Allow Telecom crews to restore alongside electricity crews

  • Ensures coordination between telecom and utilities with prioritization of restoration