Incorporating customer interruption costs into reliability planning

Value-based reliability planning (VBRP) has been a well-established theoretical concept in the utility industry for over 30 years. However, few utilities have implemented this planning framework because customer interruption cost estimates - a key input for VBRP - have not been readily available, especially for rural electric entities that do not have the resources to conduct an in-depth customer interruption cost survey. In addition, the electric utility industry has lacked a detailed technical framework for applying the VBRP theory. To address these barriers to incorporating customer interruption costs into reliability planning, the authors of this paper developed the Interruption Cost Estimate (ICE) Calculator, which is a tool designed for electric reliability planners at utilities, government organizations or other entities that are interested in estimating interruption costs and/or the benefits associated with reliability improvements. This paper provides a case study that uses the ICE Calculator and specifically discusses how rural electric entities can take advantage of this publicly available reliability planning tool.