Outage management system implementation and operations experience at Gulf Power Company

Outage management systems (OMS) provide extremely demanding requirements over a broad range of information integration, interactive functionality, and raw system performance requirements. These systems are rapidly gaining attention world-wide as utilities move toward more competitive deregulated and privatized business models. This presentation summarizes the critical characteristics necessary for the implementation of outage management systems which are an integrated part of the utility enterprise information/service strategy and are optimized for performance when needed the most; during major storms. Actual operational experience gained at Gulf Power Company will be presented to clarify implementation issues and quantify related benefits.