The online tool is designed for electric reliability planners.

A newly updated online tool and guidebook may help utilities measure the cost and impact of power outages.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory along with Nexant Inc. recently released Estimating Power System Interruption Costs: A Guidebook for Electric Utilities, and Interruption Cost Estimate Calculator 2.0: icecalculator.com.

“The over-arching goal of these two projects is to help stakeholders estimate and consider the economic benefits of proposed investments in power system reliability and resilience,” says Peter Larsen, deputy Group Leader of the Electricity Markets and Policy Group at Berkeley Lab.

The guidebook updates an older reference manual that set standard procedures for measuring electric utility customer interruption costs using generally accepted surveying techniques.

The updated and redesigned calculator is an online tool designed for electric reliability planners at utilities, government organizations and other entities interested in estimating interruption costs and the benefits associated with reliability improvements.

The guidebook for electric utilities explains how to conduct customer interruption cost studies and describes commonly used, value-based planning methods. The guidebook is intended to serve as a reference for utility personnel, policymakers and experts in survey design and administration who may be planning to implement cost studies. It uses modern survey technologies, practices and uses data analytics to estimate customer interruption costs and uses the estimates to address both traditional and emerging electric utility planning needs.

The ICE Calculator tool allows users to estimate the cost of grid interruptions (such as brownouts or blackouts) and estimate the value of an investment before it’s made.

Nexant is a San Francisco-based company with staff who specialize in grid reliability and estimating the costs of power interruptions.

The guidebook and online tool were funded by the Transmission Planning and Technical Assistance Division of DOE’s Office of Electricity.