A power quality and reliability index based on customer interruption costs

Standard reliability indexes such as SAIDI ignore the variation in interruption costs with customer type. Thus, expenditure decisions driven by these indices that impact reliability, will not lead to the optimum improvement in value of service to customers. An index equal to customer interruption costs divided by energy sales (CICs/kWh) overcomes this deficiency. It is equally useful for identifying best-business-value solutions to power quality problems. It enables a supplier to decide which portfolio of projects (affecting power quality, or reliability, or neither) earns the highest return on investment, and allows a direct comparison of its value-creation record with that of its competitors.