Method of tracking power outages

• US 7,801,647 B2
• Filed: 06/11/2009
• Issued: 09/21/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/04/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Firstenergy Corporation
• Original Assignee: Firstenergy Corporation
• Inventors: Homsher, David V., Fickey, Karl J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Masinick; Michael D
• Application Number:
  US12/482,776
• Publication Number:
  US 20090248214A1
• Time in Patent Office: 467 Days
• Field of Search: 700/286, 700/287, 700/288, 700/289, 700/292, 702/58
• US Class Current: 700/291
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A method for analyzing historical outages at the customer level for the purposes of determining root-cause and possible corrective actions is described herein. The present invention enables a utility to identify problem areas and prevent future outages from occurring.

Claims

1. A method for tracking events, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving information that at least one event has occurred;

relaying the information regarding the at least one event to a database;

determining a number of customers associated with the at least one event;

creating an individual event record for each associated customer;

analyzing the events for each associated customer;

comparing the number of events for each associated customer with an expected number of events; and

,

creating at least two indicators, wherein one of the at least two indicators indicates that the number of events is at or exceeds the number of expected events, wherein one of the at least two indicators indicates that the number of events is below the expected number of events.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the event record comprises at least a date of the event and a time of the event.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the event record further comprises at least a reason for the event, a date of resumption of an activity interrupted by the event, a time of resumption of an activity interrupted by the event, and a project number.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises the steps of:

providing a graphic representation of a map showing location of each associated customer; and

,

placing a graphic representation of the indicator for each associated customer.