HomeMy WebLinkAbout20230615Service Quality Report 2023.pdf 1407 W. North Temple, Suite 330 Salt Lake City, UT 84116 June 15, 2023
VIA ELECTRONIC DELIVERY
Ms. Jan Noriyuki
Commission Secretary Idaho Public Utilities Commission 11331 W. Chinden Blvd. Building 8 Suite 201A
Boise, ID 83714
Re: PAC-E-12-02 - Service Quality & Customer Guarantee Report for the period January 1 through December 31, 2022.
Dear Ms. Noriyuki: Rocky Mountain Power, a division of PacifiCorp, hereby provides a copy of the Service Quality
& Customer Guarantee report covering January 1 through December 31, 2022. This report is
provided pursuant to a merger commitment made during the PacifiCorp and ScottishPower1 merger and later affirmed by the Commission in Order No. 32583. The Company committed to implement a five-year Service Standards and Customer Guarantees program. The purposes behind these programs were to improve service to customers and to emphasize to employees that customer service is a top priority. Towards the end of the five-year merger commitment the Company filed
an application2 with the Commission requesting authorization to extend these programs. If there are any additional questions regarding this report please contact Mark Alder at (801) 220-2313.
Sincerely, Joelle Steward
Senior Vice President of Regulation and Customer/Community Solutions Enclosures cc: Terri Carlock
1 Case No. PAC-E-99-01. 2 Case No. PAC-E-04-07.
RECEIVED
Thursday, June 15, 2023 12:59:18 PM
IDAHO PUBLIC
UTILITIES COMMISSION
IDAHO
SERVICE QUALITY
REVIEW
January 1 – December 31, 2022
Report
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary .................................................................................................................................... 3
1 Reliability Performance ....................................................................................................................... 4
1.1 System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) ..................................................................................................... 4
1.2 System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) ................................................................................................... 6
1.3 Major and Significant Events .......................................................................................................................................... 6
1.4 Restore Service to 80% of Customers within 3 Hours .................................................................................................... 7
2 Reliability History ................................................................................................................................. 8
2.1 Idaho Reliability Historical Performance ......................................................................................................................... 8
2.2 Controllable, Non-Controllable and Underlying Performance Review ........................................................................... 8
2.3 Underlying Cause Analysis Table .................................................................................................................................. 11
2.4 Cause Category Analysis Charts .................................................................................................................................... 12
3 Reliability Improvement Process ....................................................................................................... 13
3.1 Transmission Investments ............................................................................................................................................ 13
4 Customer Response ........................................................................................................................... 14
4.1 Telephone Service and Response to Commission Complaints ..................................................................................... 14
4.2 Customer Guarantees Program Status ......................................................................................................................... 15
5 Service Standards/Program Summary ............................................................................................... 16
5.1 Service Standards Program ........................................................................................................................................... 16
5.1.1 Rocky Mountain Power Customer Guarantees ................................................................................................... 16
5.1.2 Rocky Mountain Power Performance Standards ................................................................................................ 16
5.2 Cause Code Analysis ...................................................................................................................................................... 17
5.3 Reliability Definitions .................................................................................................................................................... 18
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Executive Summary
Rocky Mountain Power developed its Customer Service Standards and Service Quality Measures in 1999. The
Company developed the program by benchmarking its performance against relevant industry reliability and
customer service standards. In some cases, Rocky Mountain Power has expanded upon these Standards. In other
cases (largely where the industry has no established standard) Rocky Mountain Power developed its own metrics,
targets, and reporting methods. The Standards guide and reaffirm the importance of customer service both
external and internally.
The Company distinguishes between non-controllable outages (e.g., lightning, vehicle collisions) and controllable
outages (e.g., animal interference, equipment failure) and takes cost-effective steps to minimize both. As part of
the Company’s Performance Standards Program, it annually evaluates individual electrical circuits to focus on those
that have the most frequent interruptions. These are targeted for improvement and generally completed within
two years.
For the period January to December 2022, results of network performance as measured by System Average
Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) and System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) in Idaho are favorable
to the Company’s plan. The Company’s goal continues to be supplying safe, reliable power to Idaho. Rocky
Mountain Power is dedicated to learning from our past service experiences and continuing to make improvements
to our operations and customer service to ensure Idaho’s needs are met.
Below is a summary of our calendar year 2022 performance serving the customers of Idaho.
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1 Reliability Performance
Rocky Mountain Power strives to deliver reliable service to its customers in Idaho. For the reporting period, the
Company’s network performance was favorable as measured by System Average Interruption Duration Index
(SAIDI) and System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) in Idaho. Results for Idaho underlying
performance can be seen in subsections 1.1 and 1.2 below. During the reporting period there were no major
events and one significant event day. Details regarding these events are found in section 1.3. Section 1.4 shows
Company outage response performance. Transmission outages continue to cause a significant impact to the
customers in Idaho. These outages have a greater tendency to reach the established Major Event thresholds and
make up most significant event days.
1.1 System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI)
Below is the Company’s underlying1 interruption duration performance through December 2022.
IDAHO RELIABILITY
PERFORMANCE FOR 2022
SAIDI
(reporting period)
(year-end)
Underlying
(Major events and EFR excluded) 105 141.5
(Major events and EFR included)128.8 N/A
1 Underlying events include all sustained interruptions, whether of a controllable or non-controllable cause, exclusive of major events,
elevated fire risk outages, prearranged (which can include short notice emergency prearranged outages), customer requested
interruptions and forced outages mandated by public authority typically regarding safety in an emergency.
2 As part of the Company’s wildfire mitigation programs, the Company may use protection coordination settings, referred to as “Elevated
Fire Risk” (EFR) settings, that more substantially affected distribution system performance than standard settings. In 2021, the Company
developed a method to estimate the reliability impacts of the device setting changes. EFR settings are applied when fire weather
conditions, such as high winds, low fuel moisture, elevated temperature, low relative humidity, and volatile fuels, are greatest. When EFR
settings are used, certain operational responses may also differ, which may result in more sustained outage events and longer outage
duration. The value shown indicated the total SAIDI impact for outages that occur while circuits were on EFR settings.
3 Controllable categories include Animals, Bird Mortality (non-protected and protected species), Bird Nest, Bird Suspected-No Mortality,
Bad Order Equipment, Deterioration or Rotting, Faulty Install, Overload, and Trees – Trimmable.
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1.2 System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI)
Below are the Company’s underlying interruption frequency performance results through December 2022.
IDAHO Underlying SAIFI
SAIFI
(reporting period)
(year-end)
Underlying (major events excluded) 0.99 1.77
Total (major events included)
1.3 Major and Significant Events
Major Event General Descriptions
There was one major events during the reporting period met the Company’s Idaho major event threshold level5
for exclusion from underlying performance results.
Major Events
Date Cause SAIDI
Weather-Snow, Sleet and Blizzard; Loss of Transmission 21.3
Significant Events
Significant event days add substantially to year-on-year cumulative performance results; fewer significant event
days generally result in better reliability for the reporting period, while more significant event days generally
4 Our yearly SAIFI Plan does not include major events.
5 A Major Event (ME) is defined as a 24-hour period where SAIDI exceeds a statistically derived threshold value (Reliability Standard IEEE 1366-2012) based on the 2.5 beta methodology. The values used for the reporting period are shown below: Effective Date Customer Count ME Threshold SAIDI ME Customer Minutes Lost
1/1-12/31/2022 86,628 14.844 1,285,887
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means poorer reliability results. During the reporting period six significant event days6 were recorded, which
accounted for 28.93 SAIDI minutes, or about 20.7 percent of the reporting period’s underlying 105 SAIDI minutes.
The Company has recognized that these significant days have caused a negative impact to performance and that
they have been generally attributable to events within the transmission system. The Company has recognized
transmission system reliability risks previously and continues on-going improvement plans.
Significant Event Days
Date Cause: General Description Underlying
SAIDI
Underlying
SAIFI Underlying Underlying
Vehicle Accident; Loss of Substation 3.05 0.024 2.9% 2.4%
Loss of Transmission 6.51 0.042 6.2% 4.2%
Loss of Substation; Weather/Wind 4.41 0.022 4.2% 2.2%
Loss of Transmission; Weather/Wind 3.48 0.026 3.3% 2.6%
Loss of Transmission 6.95 0.043 6.6% 4.3%
Loss of Transmission 4.53 0.014 4.3% 1.4%
1.4 Restore Service to 80% of Customers within 3 Hours
Overall, the Company restored power outages due to loss of supply or damage to the distribution system
within three hours to 84% of customers, achieving the goal of greater than 80%.
RESTORATIONS WITHIN 3 HOURS
Reporting Period Cumulative = 84%
January February March April May June
81% 95% 64% 83% 88% 92%
July August September October November December
89% 83% 89% 90% 75% 92%
6 On a trial basis, the Company established a variable of 1.75 times the standard deviation of its natural log SAIDI results.
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2 Reliability History
Depicted below is the history of reliability in Idaho. In 2002, the Company implemented an automated outage
management system which provided the background information from which to engineer solutions for improved
performance. Since the development of this foundational information, the Company has been in a position to
improve performance, both in underlying and in extreme weather conditions. These improvements have included:
the application of geospatial tools to analyze reliability, development of web-based notifications when devices
operate more than optimal, focus on operational responses via CAIDI metric analysis, and feeder hardening
programs when specific feeders have significantly impacted reliability performance.
2.1 Idaho Reliability Historical Performance
2.2 Controllable, Non-Controllable and Underlying Performance Review
In 2008, the Company introduced a further categorization of outage causes, which it subsequently used to
develop improvement programs as developed by engineering resources. This categorization was titled
Controllable Distribution Outages and recognized that certain types of outages can be cost-effectively avoided.
As an example, animal-caused or equipment failure interruptions have a less random nature than lightning
caused interruptions; other causes have also been determined and are specified in Section 2.3. Engineers can
develop plans to mitigate against controllable distribution outages and provide better future reliability at the
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lowest possible cost. At that time, there was concern that the Company would lose focus on non-controllable
outages.7 To provide insight into the response and history for those outages, the charts below distinguish
amongst the outage groupings.
The graphic history demonstrates controllable, non-controllable, and underlying performance on a rolling 365-
day basis. Analysis of the trends displayed in the charts below shows a general improving trends for all charts.
To also focus on non-controllable outages, the Company has continued to improve its resilience to extreme
weather using such programs as its visual assurance program to evaluate facility condition. It also has undertaken
efforts to establish impacts of loss of supply events on its customers and deliver appropriate improvements when
identified. It uses its web-based notification tool for alerting field engineering and operational resources when
devices have exceeded performance thresholds to react as quickly as possible to trends in declining reliability.
These notifications are conducted regardless of whether the outage cause was controllable or not.
7 The Company shall provide, as an appendix to its Service Quality Review reports, information regarding non-controllable outages,
including, when applicable, descriptions of efforts made by the Company to improve service quality and reliability for causes the Company
has identified as not controllable. The Company shall provide a supplemental filing, within 90 days, consisting of a process for measuring
performance and improvements for the non-controllable events.
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2.3 Underlying Cause Analysis Table
The table and charts below show the total customer minutes lost by cause and the total sustained interruptions
by cause. The Underlying cause analysis table excludes major events and includes prearranged outages
(Customer Requested, Customer Notice Given, Construction, and Planned Notice Exempt line items) with
subtotals for their inclusion, while the grand totals in the table exclude these prearranged outages so that grand
totals align with reported SAIDI and SAIFI metrics for the period. Idaho Cause Analysis - Underlying 01/01/2022 - 12/31/2022
Direct Cause Minutes Lost for Incident Incident SAIDI SAIFI
ANIMALS 86,576 991 145 1.0 0.01
BIRD MORTALITY (NON-PROTECTED SPECIES) 22,438 263 87 0.3 0.00
BIRD MORTALITY (PROTECTED SPECIES) (BMTS) 10,753 650 11 0.1 0.01
BIRD NEST (BMTS) 4,589 45 6 0.1 0.00
BIRD SUSPECTED, NO MORTALITY 61,130 795 34 0.7 0.01
FIRE/SMOKE (NOT DUE TO FAULTS) 49,282 127 2 0.6 0.00
BAD ORDER EQUIPMENT 236,468 2,024 195 2.7 0.02
DETERIORATION OR ROTTING 821,969 6,161 455 9.5 0.07
NEARBY FAULT 188 1 1 0.0 0.00
OVERLOAD 84,175 1,513 14 1.0 0.02
POLE FIRE 543,049 2,728 34 6.3 0.03
DIG-IN (NON-PACIFICORP PERSONNEL) 242,214 1,896 31 2.8 0.02
OTHER INTERFERING OBJECT 25,791 393 15 0.3 0.00
OTHER UTILITY/CONTRACTOR 148,503 2,263 8 1.7 0.03
VEHICLE ACCIDENT 542,290 4,598 46 6.3 0.05
LOSS OF FEED FROM SUPPLIER 87,957 1,011 9 1.0 0.01
LOSS OF SUBSTATION 1,135,694 7,104 27 13.1 0.08
LOSS OF TRANSMISSION LINE 2,354,553 21,660 88 27.2 0.25
FAULTY INSTALL 900 11 11 0.0 0.00
INCORRECT RECORDS 213 1 1 0.0 0.00
INTERNAL CONTRACTOR 19,970 565 2 0.2 0.01
PACIFICORP EMPLOYEE - FIELD 599 5 1 0.0 0.00
OTHER, KNOWN CAUSE 313,306 2,477 173 3.6 0.03
UNKNOWN 362,446 6,087 417 4.2 0.07
CONSTRUCTION 2,042 54 10 0.0 0.00
CUSTOMER NOTICE GIVEN 1,997,040 12,476 212 23.1 0.14
CUSTOMER REQUESTED 2,178 22 11 0.0 0.00
EMERGENCY DAMAGE REPAIR 140,708 945 27 1.6 0.01
INTENTIONAL TO CLEAR TROUBLE 927 137 1 0.0 0.00
PLANNED NOTICE EXEMPT 1,021,949 8,123 159 11.8 0.09
TREE - NON-PREVENTABLE 277,542 4,090 48 3.2 0.05
TREE - TRIMMABLE 3,303 28 5 0.0 0.00
FREEZING FOG & FROST 12,064 69 5 0.1 0.00
ICE 3,575 32 10 0.0 0.00
LIGHTNING 210,222 1731 71 2.4 0.02
SNOW, SLEET AND BLIZZARD 284,698 2112 54 3.3 0.02
WIND 1,005,776 12,824 333 11.6 0.15
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2.4 Cause Category Analysis Charts
Certain cause categories impact more customers for a given event, while others impact few customers but may
take longer to restore. The charts and graphs below show customer minutes lost (SAIDI) and sustained
interruptions (SAIFI) by cause category. Customer minutes lost is directly related to SAIDI (the average outage
duration for a customer), customer interruptions directly relate to SAIFI (the average outage frequency for a
customer) while sustained interruptions depict the total number of outages by their causes. Certain types of
outages typically result in a large amount of customer minutes lost, though they occur infrequently, such as Loss
of Supply outages. Others tend to be more frequent but result in few customer minutes lost. The pie charts below
show the percentage of SAIDI, SAIFI and Incidents by all cause categories. Total excludes major events and
prearranged outages within the Planned cause category.
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3 Reliability Improvement Process
Rocky Mountain Power is committed to delivering safe and reliable power. For years, the company has
developed, monitored, and tracked reliability metrics in accordance with industry standards and regulatory
requirements. Over time, improvements have been made to minimize the negative impact of power
interruptions by reducing outage duration and frequency. To continue keeping its commitment to deliver safe
and reliable power, Rocky Mountain Power develops a reliability plan annually to identify new projects and
programs to continually improve system performance and resilience. Rocky Mountain Power’s reliability plan is a key program that is used to improve system reliability is the
development of individual reliability work plans for areas of concern. This is a strategic approach based upon
recent trends in performance as measured by customer minutes interrupted (CMI), from which SAIDI is
derived. The decision to fund one performance improvement project over another is based on cost
effectiveness as measured by the cost per avoided customer minute interruptions. Care is taken to ensure the
cost effectiveness measure does not limit funding of improvement projects in areas of low customer density
over more densely populated areas. Circuits that serve many customers has been identified as an area of concern. As a result, Rocky Mountain
Power implemented a new mainline sectionalizing guideline to reduce the number of customers exposed per
feeder. The guideline outlines recommendations for a maximum per feeder customer count of 2,250, which
are to be further subdivided into protection zones of no more than 750 customers. A feeder analysis was
performed to determine which feeders do not meet these recommendations and about six circuits were
identified to currently exceed the maximum recommendation of 2,250 customers. As of 2022, we identified
six circuits that are flagged to be over the recommended customer count threshold. We recently reduced the
customer counts on one of these circuits to approximately 1,800. There are no mainline sectionalizing projects
currently planned or in construction for Idaho.
3.1 Transmission Investments
Rocky Mountain Power has invested in improving the transmission reliability in Idaho over the past few years.
The table below highlights significant projects that were completed in Idaho to improve reliability and address
load growth.
Description of CAPEX Project Description
Rexburg Sub: Install 161 kV Source from Rigby 12/31/2021
Rigby substation by converting an existing 69-kV line to 161-kV to create a 161-
kV source at Rexburg substation through a new 161-69 kV transformer
installation. The project also will include a new six breaker 69-kV ring bus at Rexburg substation that includes terminating two existing 69-kV lines and one new 69-kV line. Benefits of the project include establishing a new 161-kV
source in the area, providing additional 69-kV capacity, improving 69-kV voltage
Montpelier Area Voltage Support 10/18/2023 capacitor bank at St Charles Substation to resolve low voltage issues on the Montpelier, Idaho area 69 kV system after certain transmission contingency
Malad Sub: Add Transmission Breakers and Relays 12/31/2021
of 12.7 trip and recloses per year from 2017 to 2019 that were attributed to
contaminated insulator flashovers. Every trip and reclose results in a
momentary outage for 2,856 customers served by Malad, Juniper, Snowville, and Holbrook substations. This project will expand Malad substation and install two new 138kV circuit breakers, relays, and communications. This will
effectively split up the American Falls to Wheelon 138kV transmission line
which will result in the ability to sectionalize the line always keeping the non-
faulted section in-service. This ability to sectionalize the line will prevent customers from experiencing a momentary outage in the case of a trip and
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Bonneville-Merrill-Hoopes 69kV ln +UB Reframe 4/1/2021 line which is experiencing unacceptable outages. This will include replacing
Goshen #3 35/161 kV 400 MVA Transformer Install 11/15/2022
This project involves the installation of a third 345/161 kV transformer at the
Goshen substation located in southeast Idaho. This project is needed in order
to resolve a potential overloading issue at the existing Goshen 345/161 kV
transformers. Load in the Goshen area has continued to increase and as the load continues to grow, the risk of overloading the two existing Goshen 345/161 kV transformers increases. The 2016 Goshen area studies indicated
that by 2021, loss of either one of the Goshen 345/161 kV transformers can
overload the remaining Goshen 345/161 kV transformer above its emergency rating. The third transformer will be installed in 2021 with a replacement spare received in 2022.
Goshen-Sugarmill-Rigby 161kV Trans Line- T 12/15/2021
The scope of this project is to construct approximately 44 miles of new 161 kV
transmission line from the Goshen to Sugarmill and Sugarmill to Rigby
substations located in the southeast Idaho area. In addition, some of the existing 69 kV line will be rebuilt to 161 kV between Goshen and Sugarmill substation and the existing Ammon substation will be converted from 69 kV to
161 kV. This project is needed to increase reliability to both transmission and
load service customers in the Goshen Idaho area. This project also addresses
low voltage at Rigby and Sugarmill substations when under heavy load conditions.
ERICKSON JCT-WEBSTER 69KV LINE(REFRAME) 12/31/2022 24 tangent structures "YS"&"PSSM" to TE201 on the Rigby-Rexburg 69 kV
transmission line. Spiral dampers will also be installed as part of this project in
Lava–McCammon 46kV 3.4-mile Reconductor 10/15/2022
1/0-CU conductor between Lava and McCammon substations with new 397.5 ACSR “Ibis” conductor. In addition to the new conductor, 26 single poles and
four H-frame structures need to be replaced due to inadequate strength and/or
height. A 3/8” shield wire will also be installed for the 3.4 miles. With the
completion of this project, all of the original conductors will have been replaced
4 Customer Response
4.1 Telephone Service and Response to Commission Complaints
The Company achieved most of its goals related to providing a timely response to customers concerns and
commission complaints, except for the PS5 commitment, which was due to a staffing shortage. The Company is
recruiting and training additional customer service representatives and expects the PS5 performance to
improve during 2023 as these new employees are placed in their new roles.
COMMITMENT GOAL PERFORMANCE
PS5 Answer calls within 30 seconds 80% 63%8
PS6a Respond to commission complaints within 3 days 95% 100%
PS6b 95% 100%
PS6c Resolve commission complaints within 30 days 100% 100%
8 Rocky Mountain Power’s reduction in call answering rate was impacted by several factors, including staffing challenges and increased call
volume in 2022. The Company has been conducting regular recruiting efforts and new hire classes and have seen call volume levels
decreasing. Our current performance is at 70% of calls answered within 30 seconds through April of 2023. We will continue recruiting
efforts to meet call answer rate goals.
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4.2 Customer Guarantees Program Status
Overall Customer Guarantee performance remains above 99 percent, demonstrating the Company’s continued
commitment to customer satisfaction. Major Events are excluded from the Customer Guarantees program.
customerguarantees January to December 2022
Idaho
Description Events Failures % Success Paid Events Failures % Success Paid
CG1 Restoring Supply 95,495 0 100.00% $0 181,809 0 100.00% $0
CG2 Appointments 800 1 99.88% $50 1,189 0 100.00% $0
CG3 Switching on Power 463 1 99.78% $50 391 0 100.00% $0
CG4 Estimates 398 1 99.75% $50 537 0 100.00% $0
CG5 Respond to Billing Inquiries 276 2 99.28% $100 593 0 100.00% $0
CG6 Respond to Meter Problems 80 0 100.00% $0 118 0 100.00% $0
CG7 Notification of Planned Interruptions 12,476 1 99.99% $50 18,103 0 100.00% $0
109,988 6 99.99% $300 202,740 0 100.00% $0
2022 2021
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5 Service Standards/Program Summary9
5.1 Service Standards Program
As referenced in Rule 25.
5.1.1 Rocky Mountain Power Customer Guarantees10
Customer Guarantee 1:
Restoring Supply After an Outage
The Company will restore supply after an outage within 24 hours of
notification with certain exceptions as described in Rule 25.
Customer Guarantee 2:
Appointments
The Company will keep mutually agreed upon appointments, which
will be scheduled within a two-hour time window.
Customer Guarantee 3:
Switching on Power or applicant’s request, provided no construction is required, all
government inspections are met and communicated to the Company and required payments are made. Disconnections for
Estimates For New Supply applicant or customer within 15 working days after the initial
Respond To Billing Inquiries initial contact. For those that require further investigation, the
Company will investigate and respond to the Customer within 10
Resolving Meter Problems with a meter or conduct a meter test and report results to the
Notification of Planned Interruptions notice prior to turning off power for planned interruptions
5.1.2 Rocky Mountain Power Performance Standards11
Network Performance Standard 1:
Report System Average Interruption Duration Index
(SAIDI)
Controllable SAIDI and identify annual Underlying baseline
performance targets for the reporting period. For actual
performance variations from baseline, explanations of
performance will be provided. The Company will also report rolling twelve-month performance for Controllable, Non-
Report System Average Interruption Frequency
Index (SAIFI)
Controllable SAIFI and identify annual Underlying baseline
performance targets for the reporting period. For actual
performance variations from baseline, explanations of
performance will be provided. The Company will also report
rolling twelve-month performance for Controllable, Non-
Improve Under-Performing Areas portions of circuits to improve performance by a forecast
amount, using either its legacy worst performing circuit
9 On June 29, 2012, in Case No. PAC-E-12-02 and Order No. 32583, the Commission ordered that Rocky Mountain Power had delivered upon commitments it made in pursuant to the MidAmerican transaction in Case No. PAC-E-05-08 and Order No. 29998. The Commission also ordered the acceptance of modifications to the Service Standards Program proposed by Rocky Mountain Power. 10 See Rules for a complete description of terms and conditions for the Customer Guarantee Program. 11 Performance Standards 1, 2 and 4 are for underlying performance days and exclude those classified as Major Events.
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within five years after selection) or by application of its
Supply Restoration supply or damage to the distribution system within three
Telephone Service Level seconds. The Company will monitor customer satisfaction
with the Company’s Customer Service Associates and
quality of response received by customers through the
Commission Complaint Response / Resolution disconnect Commission complaints within three working
days and will b) respond to at least 95% of disconnect
Commission complaints within four working hours and will
c) resolve 95% of informal Commission complaints within
5.2 Cause Code Analysis
The Company classifies outages based upon the cause categories and causes; causes are a further delineation
within cause categories. It applies the definitions below to determine the outage cause categories. These
categories and their causes can help support reliability analysis and improvement efforts.
Direct Cause
Category Category Definition & Example/Direct Cause
Any problem nest that requires removal, relocation, trimming, etc.; any birds, squirrels, or other animals,
whether or not remains found.
• Animal (Animals) • Bird Nest • Bird Mortality (Non-protected species) • Bird or Nest • Bird Mortality (Protected species) (BMTS) • Bird Suspected, No Mortality
Contamination or Airborne Deposit (i.e., salt, trona ash, other chemical dust, sawdust, etc.); corrosive
environment; flooding due to rivers, broken water main, etc.; fire/smoke related to forest, brush or building
fires (not including fires due to faults or lightning).
• •
• • • •
•
Equipment
Failure
Structural deterioration due to age (incl. pole rot); electrical load above limits; failure for no apparent reason;
conditions resulting in a pole/cross arm fire due to reduced insulation qualities; equipment affected by fault on
• • • •
Interference utility dig-in; contact by outside utility, contractor or other third-party individual; vehicle accident, including
• • • •
• Loss of
Supply
• • • •
• • Operational or commissioning error; relay setting error, including wrong fuse size, equipment by-passed; incorrect circuit
• • • •
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• • • •
• Other
• • •
Planned repairs after storm damage, car hit pole, etc.; construction work, regardless of whether notice is given; rolling
• • • •
• •
• • Tree
• • •
Weather
• •
• • • •
5.3 Reliability Definitions
This section will define the various terms used when referring to interruption types, performance metrics and
the internal measures developed to meet its performance plans.
Interruption Types
Below are the definitions for interruption events. For further details, refer to IEEE 1366-2003/201212 Standard
for Reliability Indices.
Sustained Outage
A sustained outage is defined as an outage greater than 5 minutes in duration.
Momentary Outage Event
A momentary outage event is defined as an outage equal to or less than 5 minutes in duration and comprises all
operations of the device during the momentary duration; if a breaker goes to lockout (it is unable to clear the
faulted condition after the equipment’s prescribed number of operations) the momentary operations are part
of the ensuing sustained interruption. This sequence of events typically occurs when the system is trying to re-
establish energy flow after a faulted condition and is associated with circuit breakers or other automatic reclosing
devices. Rocky Mountain Power uses the locations where SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition)
exists and calculates consistent with IEEE 1366-2003/2012. Where no substation breaker SCADA exists, fault
counts at substation breakers are to be used.
Reliability Indices
SAIDI
SAIDI (system average interruption duration index) is an industry-defined term to define the average duration
summed for all sustained outages a customer experiences in each period. It is calculated by summing all customer
minutes lost for sustained outages (those exceeding 5 minutes) and dividing by all customers served within the
study area. When not explicitly stated otherwise, this value can be assumed to be for a one-year period.
Daily SAIDI
12 IEEE 1366-2003 was adopted by the IEEE on December 23, 2003. It was subsequently modified in IEEE 1366-2012, but all definitions
used in this document are consistent between these two versions. The definitions and methodology detailed therein are now industry
standards.
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To evaluate trends during a year and to establish Major Event Thresholds, a daily SAIDI value is often used as a
measure. This concept is contained IEEE Standard 1366-2012. This is the day’s total customer minutes out of
service divided by the static customer count for the year. It is the total average outage duration customers
experienced for that given day. When these daily values are accumulated through the year, it yields the year’s
SAIDI results.
SAIFI
SAIFI (system average interruption frequency index) is an industry-defined term that attempts to identify the
frequency of all sustained outages that the average customer experiences during a given period. It is calculated
by summing all customer interruptions for sustained outages (those exceeding 5 minutes in duration) and
dividing by all customers served within the study area.
CAIDI
CAIDI (customer average interruption duration index) is an industry standard index that is the result of dividing
the duration of the average customer’s sustained outages by frequency of outages for that average customer.
While the Company did not originally specify this metric under the umbrella of the Performance Standards
Program within the context of the Service Standards Commitments, it has since been determined to be valuable
for reporting purposes. It is derived by dividing PS1 (SAIDI) by PS2 (SAIFI).
MAIFIE
MAIFIE (momentary average interruption event frequency index) is an industry standard index that quantifies
the frequency of all momentary interruption events that the average customer experiences during a given
timeframe. It is calculated by counting all momentary interruptions which occur within a 5-minute period, if the
interruption event did not result in a device experiencing a sustained interruption.
CEMI
CEMI is an acronym for Customers Experiencing Multiple (Sustained and Momentary) Interruptions. This index
depicts repetition of outages across the period being reported and can be an indicator of recent portions of the
system that have experienced reliability challenges. This metric is used to evaluate customer-specific reliability.
CPI99
CPI99 is an acronym for Circuit Performance Indicator, which uses key reliability metrics of the circuit to identify
underperforming circuits. It excludes Major Event and Loss of Supply or Transmission outages. The variables and
equation for calculating CPI are: CPI = Index * ((SAIDI * WF * NF) + (SAIFI * WF * NF) + (MAIFI * WF * NF) + (Lockouts * WF * NF)) Index: 10.645
SAIDI: Weighting Factor 0.30, Normalizing Factor 0.029
SAIFI: Weighting Factor 0.30, Normalizing Factor 2.439
MAIFI: Weighting Factor 0.20, Normalizing Factor 0.70
Lockouts: Weighting Factor 0.20, Normalizing Factor 2.00
Therefore, 10.645 * ((3-year SAIDI * 0.30 * 0.029) + (3-year SAIFI * 0.30 * 2.439) + (3-year MAIFI * 0.20 * 0.70)
+ (3-year breaker lockouts * 0.20 * 2.00)) = CPI Score
CPI05
CPI05 is an acronym for Circuit Performance Indicator, which uses key reliability metrics of the circuit to identify
underperforming circuits. Unlike CPI99 it includes Major Event and Loss of Supply or Transmission outages. The
calculation of CPI05 uses the same weighting and normalizing factors as CPI99.
RPI
RPI is an acronym for Reliability Performance Indicator, which measures reliability performance on a specific
segment of a circuit to identify underperforming circuit segments rather than measuring performance of the
whole circuit. This is the Company’s refinement to its historic CPI, more granular.
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Performance Types & Commitments
Rocky Mountain Power recognizes several categories of performance: major events and underlying performance.
Underlying performance days may be significant event days. Outages recorded during any day may be classified
as “controllable” events.
Major Events
A Major Event (ME) is defined as a 24-hour period where SAIDI exceeds a statistically derived threshold value
(Reliability Standard IEEE 1366-2012) based on the 2.5 beta methodology. The values used for the reporting
period and the prospective period are shown below. Effective Date Customer Count ME Threshold SAIDI ME Customer Minutes Lost
1/1-12/31/2022 86,628 14.844 1,285,887
Significant Events
The Company has evaluated its year-to-year performance and as part of an industry weather normalization task
force, sponsored by the IEEE Distribution Reliability Working Group, determined that when the Company
recorded a day in excess of 1.75 beta (or 1.75 times the natural log standard deviation beyond the natural log
daily average for the day’s SAIDI) that generally these days’ events are generally associated with weather events
and serve as an indicator of a day which accrues substantial reliability metrics, adding to the cumulative reliability
results for the period. As a result, the Company individually identifies these days so that year-on-year
comparisons are informed by the quantity and their combined impact to the reporting period results.
Underlying Events
Within the industry, there has been a great need to develop methodologies to evaluate year-on-year
performance. This has led to the development of methods for segregating outlier days, via the approaches
described above. Those days which fall below the statistically derived threshold represent “underlying”
performance and are valid. If any changes have occurred in outage reporting processes, those impacts need to
be considered when making comparisons. Underlying events include all sustained interruptions, whether of a
controllable or non-controllable cause, exclusive of major events, prearranged (which can include short notice
emergency prearranged outages), customer requested interruptions and forced outages mandated by public
authority typically regarding safety in an emergency.
Controllable Distribution (CD) Events
In 2008, the Company identified the benefit of separating its tracking of outage causes into those that can be
classified as “controllable” (and thereby reduced through preventive work) from those that are “non-
controllable” (and thus cannot be mitigated through engineering programs); they will generally be referred to in
subsequent text as controllable distribution (CD). For example, outages caused by deteriorated equipment or
animal interference are classified as controllable distribution since the Company can take preventive measures
with a high probability to avoid future recurrences, while vehicle interference or weather events are largely out
of the Company’s control and generally not avoidable through engineering programs. (It should be noted that
Controllable Events is a subset of Underlying Events. The Cause Code Analysis section of this report contains two
tables for Controllable Distribution and Non-controllable Distribution, which list the Company’s performance by
direct cause under each classification.) At the time that the Company established the determination of
controllable and non-controllable distribution it undertook significant root cause analysis of each cause type and
its proper categorization (either controllable or non-controllable). Thus, when outages are completed and
evaluated, and if the outage cause designation is improperly identified as non-controllable, then it would result
in correction to the outage’s cause to preserve the association between controllable and non-controllable based
on the outage cause code. The Company distinguishes the performance delivered using this differentiation for
comparing year to date performance against underlying and total performance metrics.