South Central Power
Outage Watch & GIS Management

Background/Overview

South Central Power is a member-owned cooperative that provides electricity in 24 counties in southern and eastern Ohio. They serve over 110,000 customers with more than 11,000 miles of energized power lines. In response to a series of serious power outages, the members of the cooperative demanded better visibility into the extent and impact of outages.


The Challenge

In order to provide real-time outage impacts, a comprehensive back-end infrastructure was needed. Outage information relies on accurate maps, detailed customer information, a comprehensive network linking electric assets, interaction with the control systems (SCADA), and an outage management system (OMS) to track these resources. While some of these systems were in operation, others needed to be created. All of the systems needed to be connected to communicate information in real-time.

The Solution

HMB began by extensively revamping the mapping (GIS) systems. Utilizing the industry leader in GIS systems, ESRI's ArcGIS, HMB digitized the maps and provided integration with the Customer Information, Billing and Asset Management systems.

With the mapping infrastructure set, the next big component was implemented: the Outage Management System. By providing an interactive application for technicians, outage information could be managed and controlled. Finally, with outage data being captured, a public facing website provided a window into the impact of outages for electric customers.

The Result

By bringing together customer, outage, asset and mapping information, SCP saved time, money and staff time managing outages and updating maps. In addition, SCP reduced response time and increased customer satisfaction in response to outages.

“HMB has been a huge asset to the South Central Power Company.”

-Vice President, Administration


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