Distribution reliability-what is it?

Distribution reliability is a topic which has received attention from many different people including CEOs, public service commissions, engineers, customers, and others. This has happened because distribution reliability performance directly affects customers. In this age of fierce competition, everyone wants to have their company in the top quartile of utilities in terms of distribution reliability performance. The key to the top quartile is understanding distribution reliability and answering the following questions will aid in that endeavor. What is distribution reliability? How is it defined? What factors affect it? Why are consumer hours important? Why are investor-owned utilities using other measures and what are the measures? How does reliability impact cost decisions? Practical ways to improve reliability are also covered. This paper answers the outlined questions to help REAs and municipals understand the approach which investor-owned utilities are taking to reliability. It may also help them formulate new distribution planning and operations techniques based on distribution reliability