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Our customers are restored quicker than ever
17/01/2017
Almost nine out of ten of our customers who experience high voltage (HV) faults get their power supply restored in under an hour, according to our latest Business Plan Report.
The report reveals unprecedented reliability figures with prolonged outages dramatically reduced – a position it attributes to unwavering staff effort at all levels on speedy supply restoration.
Our engineers working hard.
“WPD has a clear focus on restoring supplies quickly. The key to success is our own ‘Target 60’ initiative which is simple yet extremely effective,” said Phil Swift, WPD’s Operations Director.
“Target 60 is the goal we set ourselves as we work to deliver best performance for customers. It’s about restoring supplies on our HV network within 60 minutes of them occurring. In recent years, clear management attention on supply restoration and commitment by staff at all levels, has led to significant performance improvements.
“This, combined with a thorough inspection and maintenance work programme, increased network automation and effective innovation schemes are some of the reasons why our supply reliability performance results continue to improve year on year.”
Phil said that our stakeholder engagement had identified supply reliability, specifically the frequency and duration of power cuts, as a priority.
Phil Swift, WPD Operations Director.
“As such, we’ve committed to achieving a range of improvements over the eight years of RIIO-ED1 so that our customers have fewer and shorter power cuts.
“We’ve continued to maintain equipment, upgrade assets, provide additional network capacity and undertake tree clearance to ensure that we prevent power cuts.”
Investment in HV automation was also contributing to the company’s success by reducing the number of customers affected by unplanned HV incidents. This includes the installation of additional remotely controlled switches and protection equipment, and the application of computerised switching algorithms.
“Remote control devices have been around for some time now but smarter use of this equipment with additional network sensing enables supplies to be rerouted quickly and safely without the need to send a person to a location with restoration often initiated via computer algorithms,” said Phil.
We have seen the average number of customers interrupted per unplanned HV incident drop in all four of its licence areas – figures have improved by 30% in the West Midlands last year alone.
Phil said that we are also committed to reducing the number of customers off supply for more than 12 hours (already at its lowest in our history) by a further 20% over the course of RIIO-ED1.
WPD’s Business Plan Report can be found here.
The report reveals unprecedented reliability figures with prolonged outages dramatically reduced – a position it attributes to unwavering staff effort at all levels on speedy supply restoration.
Our engineers working hard.
“WPD has a clear focus on restoring supplies quickly. The key to success is our own ‘Target 60’ initiative which is simple yet extremely effective,” said Phil Swift, WPD’s Operations Director.
“Target 60 is the goal we set ourselves as we work to deliver best performance for customers. It’s about restoring supplies on our HV network within 60 minutes of them occurring. In recent years, clear management attention on supply restoration and commitment by staff at all levels, has led to significant performance improvements.
“This, combined with a thorough inspection and maintenance work programme, increased network automation and effective innovation schemes are some of the reasons why our supply reliability performance results continue to improve year on year.”
Phil said that our stakeholder engagement had identified supply reliability, specifically the frequency and duration of power cuts, as a priority.
Phil Swift, WPD Operations Director.
“As such, we’ve committed to achieving a range of improvements over the eight years of RIIO-ED1 so that our customers have fewer and shorter power cuts.
“We’ve continued to maintain equipment, upgrade assets, provide additional network capacity and undertake tree clearance to ensure that we prevent power cuts.”
Investment in HV automation was also contributing to the company’s success by reducing the number of customers affected by unplanned HV incidents. This includes the installation of additional remotely controlled switches and protection equipment, and the application of computerised switching algorithms.
“Remote control devices have been around for some time now but smarter use of this equipment with additional network sensing enables supplies to be rerouted quickly and safely without the need to send a person to a location with restoration often initiated via computer algorithms,” said Phil.
We have seen the average number of customers interrupted per unplanned HV incident drop in all four of its licence areas – figures have improved by 30% in the West Midlands last year alone.
Phil said that we are also committed to reducing the number of customers off supply for more than 12 hours (already at its lowest in our history) by a further 20% over the course of RIIO-ED1.
WPD’s Business Plan Report can be found here.
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