Smart grid technologies are helping utilities to speed outage restoration following major storm events, reduce the total number of affected customers, and improve overall service reliability to reduce customer losses from power disruptions. A new report from OE's Smart Grid Investment Grant (SGIG) program presents findings on smart grid improvements in outage management, based on the recent experiences of three SGIG projects:

• Electric Power Board (EPB), headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee
• Florida Power and Light Company (FPL), headquartered in Juno Beach, Florida
• PECO, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

All three had smart grid experience prior to the SGIG program, and used DOE funding to accelerate grid modernization and deploy new technologies that strengthen reliability and resilience to improve storm outage response. While many other SGIG projects are also realizing improvements in outage management, these three featured utilities faced one or more major storms in recent years that tested newly deployed smart grid technologies.

These technologies accelerated service restoration and limited the number of affected customers during major storms. The utilities required fewer truck rolls during restoration and used repair crews more efficiently, which reduced utility restoration costs and total outage time and resulted in less impact to business and residential customers.

The complete report is now available for downloading.