Reliability metrics

Overview

This data package includes energy grid reliability data for 2014 from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The data reflects the duration and frequency of outages for the average customer, broken down by utility and state.

It's important to note that the industry continues to measure and report reliaiblity metrics in a variety of ways. This EIA data set centralizes information on utilities that follow emerging standards -- defined by the IEEE -- while also attempting to capture metadata in a consistent fashion for utilities that do not yet follow the IEEE standards.

This data set is intended for research purposes only. For example, a large discrepancy in average outage times when factoring in "major events" such as weather may indicate a system in need of upgrades or better maintenance. Such discrepancies should be the starting point for further inquiries about the local power grid.

Important notes about the data

• Data covers nearly 1,100 energy suppliers across the country, ranging from large investor-owned utilities to small municipalities and cooperatives. This is slightly more than a third of roughly 3,000 entities that file Form 861 with the EIA. Utilities may be missing from this file for a variety for reasons:
  • The smallest utlities file short forms which do not include reliability questions
  • The entity may not have "retail sales" -- i.e. does not sell power directly to end-users such as commercial or residential customers
  • The state's public utility commission does not mandate that such metrics be tracked
  • Failure to properly report data
• Partial data at the utility level is common due to wide variations in method and extent of reliability tracking (e.g., some closely follow IEEE guidelines for calculating average frequency and duration of outages, while others do not calculate either figure).
• Utilities should not be compared or ranked according to these data due to variations in how they calculate reliability metrics (even among those that follow IEEE standards).
• The EIA offers a wealth of other data about electric utilities. Utility ID numbers can be used to cross-reference energy providers across many of these files.
• AP has provided a modified version of the Reliability_2014.xls from the EIA source data. Changes made by AP include:
  • Removal of select columns
  • Removal of the territories tab
  • Removal of extraneous records (rows with no data, which EIA confirmed should not be in the file)

Download the data

The eia_reliability_2014.xls file can be found in the compressed data package: apme_power_grid_2015.zip

Column Definitions

This data set groups utilities based on whether they measure reliability using IEEE standards or some other methodology (blue columns for the former; green columns for the latter).

The data set uses acronyms for two major industry metrics:

• System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) measures the time in minutes that the average customer was without power during the year.
• System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) measures the number of outages experienced by the average customer during the year.

SAIDI and SAIFI are further broken down to reflect the inclusion and exclusion of "major event days", or MEDs, as defined by the IEEE.

Major event days occur when outage metrics exceed normal averages for a given day. Such outages can stem from cyber attacks or vandalism, although in practice they're most often caused by hurricanes, snow storms and other types of severe weather.

• Utility Number - Unique ID assigned by EIA; useful for cross-referencing with other data files offered by the EIA
• Utility Name - Utility name
• State - State for which reliability metrics were derived
• SAIDI With MED (IEEE) - Average yearly duration of outages, in minutes, including major event days
• SAIDI Without MED (IEEE) - Average yearly duration of outages, in minutes, excluding major event days
• SAIFI With MED (IEEE) - Average yearly frequency of outages, including major event days
• SAIFI Without MED (IEEE) - Average yearly frequency of outages, excluding major event days
• Number of Customers (IEEE) - Number of customers that factored into SAIDI/SAIFI calculations
• Outages Recorded Automatically (IEEE) - Whether the system records outage data automatically
• SAIDI With MED (Other) - Average yearly duration of outages, in minutes, including major event days
• SAIDI Without MED (Other) - Average yearly duration of outages, in minutes, excluding major event days
• SAIFI With MED (Other) - Average yearly frequency of outages, including major event days
• SAIFI Without MED (Other) - Average yearly frequency of outages, excluding major event days
• Number of Customers (Other) - Number of customers that factored into SAIDI/SAIFI calculations
• Outages Recorded Automatically (Other) - Whether the system records outage data automatically