15-Minute ETRs: Precision at Speed

By Suzan Greene, Senior Consultant

When outages occur, customers’ tolerance becomes less and less as expectations have increased. As we have said for many years, Estimated Time of Restoration (ETR) is key to providing timely and accurate outage communication. It’s what customers most want to know.

We’ve seen a growing number of utilities who are leveraging AI and machine learning for both blue-sky and storm ETRs. Some of the challenges that come along are accurate data, system integration issues, real-time field updates, and a lack of good ETR processes. Customers have much tighter standards, of course. If they send people home based on the ETR you provided, and then their power is restored early, they won’t be happy.

But just to make things harder, customers expect to receive that accurate ETR within the first 15 minutes, according to our consumer survey data. And now, with that accuracy window relatively narrow, customers are more tolerant of early restoration than late. This is one topic the Outage Communications Leadership Council will continue to cover as utilities refine their processes, improve their systems, and enhance field engagement.

Contact Suzan Greene with any outage-related questions or to schedule a meeting.