2019-198 - Electric Outages UpdateDate: December 13, 2019 Report No. 2019-198
INFORMAL STAFF REPORT
TO MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
SUBJECT:
Electric outage update.
BACKGROUND:
In 2017, DME completed an electric outage prevention technique called “Feeder Sweeps” on
several electric feeders on the North side of Denton. In 2018, DME recorded a significant drop in
the number of electric outages experienced by our customers, as shown in the chart below. So far
this year outages seem to be on the rise due to five large-scale thunderstorms, which included a F1
tornado on April 30th. DME is conducting several major electric line upgrade projects that will
increase system flexibility and resiliency across the local electric grid. These large-scale line
upgrades often include scheduled power outages to move our customers to the new lines. These
types of outages also affect yearly totals. Although the electric system has taken several weather
related hits this year, outage estimates are close to totals from last year with no significant rise
expected.
Year # of Outages Events Duration (Hrs) # of Customers out
2019 estimates* 610 44,828 23,847
2018 615 40,357 23,708
2017 945 53,465 25,262
2016 590 40,210 27,482
*4th quarter data is not available at this time and has been estimated.
The chart below shows that the reliability indices for System Average Interruption Frequency,
which measures the average number of outages a customer would experience, and System Average
Interruption Duration, which measures the average outage duration for each customer served, have
decreased since 2017 and are well below the National Averages provided by the APPA.
Year SAIFI SAIDI Total Customers
2019
estimate*
.60 47.44 56712+
2018 .74 34.28 54313
2017 .80 60.12 53,355
2016 .96 46.20 52,222
National
average
1.30 134.6
*4th quarter data is not available at this time and has been estimated.
Date: December 13, 2019 Report No. 2019-198
CONCLUSION:
DME is dedicated to maintaining exceptional reliability indices and reducing the total number of
outages on the system, despite an ever-growing electric system and unpredictable Texas weather.
STAFF CONTACT:
Jerry Looper
Electric System Operations Manager
(940) 349-7676
Jerry.Looper@cityofdenton.com