Customer damage resulting from electric service interruptions

Abstract

An investigation of the direct, short-term impacts and costs incurred by electrical customers as a result of local random supply interruptions is reported. User interruption cost estimates were determined by means of mail surveys of 4 categories of users in Canada: residential, commercial, industrial, and large users. The variation of interruption cost is determined as a function of interruption characteristics such as frequency, duration, or time of day or year, and of user characteristics. Cost variations as a function of variables such as price of electricity, the availability of advance warning, information concerning the expected duration of interruption, and quality of utility service are included. Three different estimators of residential interruption cost are presented: willingness-to-pay rate increase estimates, willingness-to-accept rate decrease estimates, and estimates computed from the value of actions respondents indicated they would take in preparation for interruptions. The commercial, industrial, and large user estimates result from respondent estimates of the dollar loss to the respondent. Respondent costs per interruption are reported as well as normalized values obtained by dividing individual respondent costs by their annual energy consumption and annual peak demand. Weighted cost estimates for commercial and industrial users by industrial sector are also provided. A comprehensive and annotated bibliography of publications related to the theory and results of research into worth of reliability is appended. 63 refs., 27 figs., 140 tabs.