Storm Forecasting Drives Utility O&M Savings
One of the most challenging tasks in the energy delivery business is dealing with the uncertainty surrounding storms and customer outages. With extreme weather occurring with greater regularity, it is imperative that companies can accurately forecast storms impacts. And a key part of this storm impact analysis is to understand when a storm will hit but also the scope of the damage. Knowing this allows you to accurately plan your staffing needs; when to bring in mutual assistance crews and contractors and when they would be unnecessary.
MindStorm’s technology provides clients with the ability to anticipate the severity of not just storms but also outages and system damage using machine learning and multi factor predictive modeling. By understanding how many outages are expected our clients can optimize their contractor spend while still maintaining best in class service to their customers. The excess contractor staffing and overtime hours can be better avoided by leveraging our solution.
The best example is one that every incident commander can recognize; when a storm was expected and just never materialized. With Mindstorm we partner with your subject matter experts to build a severity response model that gives your team a forecast based on both the expected severity and the expected necessary response. By partnering with our clients we can incorporate their comfort level with outage risk to define a response level best suited their unique system. This will ensure that storm response is staffed appropriately, and you are not left with expensive contractors idling in a parking lot when the weather is mild.
On the other hand when major weather events are forecast our solution can provide several days of warning that such an event is coming as well as a forecast probability. Our system is continuously updated, providing you with a real time forecast as conditions either improve or deteriorate. This way you can be sure that you can make the appropriate preparations to ensure a swift response to major storms while avoiding excess costs on smaller and more manageable events.
