What are planned and unplanned outages?
Every electricity network has two kinds of interruption to supply.
A planned outage (also called a planned shutdown or scheduled interruption) is deliberate. The network switches off part of the system for a set period so crews can work safely on maintenance, upgrades, replacements or new connections. Customers are notified in advance, usually by their retailer or the network, and told the date and the expected window.
An unplanned outage is unexpected. Something has failed or been damaged: a storm brings down lines, a tree falls across a conductor, a car hits a pole, a transformer fails or an underground cable is dug up. There is no warning, and the network’s first job is to find the fault and make it safe.
The same terms are used in gas, water and telecommunications networks.
How they differ for customers and the contact centre
Planned outages
The work is known in advance, so the contact centre can prepare. Calls tend to be steady rather than spiky and are mostly about:
- confirming whether a power cut is the planned one
- asking for the date or time to be changed
- reporting that notice wasn’t received
- raising concerns from medically dependent consumers, businesses with refrigeration, or people working from home
- asking what’s happening when the work overruns
Because the affected addresses are known, planned outages suit proactive outage notification and outbound contact with customers who need extra notice or support.
Unplanned outages
Unplanned outages drive the hardest days in a utility contact centre. A single storm can produce many faults at once and a call avalanche. Callers are often worried, and some calls are hazard calls about fallen lines or sparks. Agents need to triage risk, log new faults accurately and give the latest estimated time of restoration from the outage management system.
Regulation and reliability reporting
Both kinds of outage are recorded and reported. Reliability measures such as SAIDI and SAIFI are typically calculated separately for planned and unplanned interruptions, since they reflect different things: planned outages show how a network manages its work programme, while unplanned outages show the resilience of its assets.
Notice of planned outages, and how networks look after vulnerable customers during them, is also an area of regulation. In New Zealand, the Electricity Authority’s Consumer Care Obligations cover how retailers and distributors support medically dependent and vulnerable consumers. In Australia, the National Energy Retail Rules include life support obligations that apply to retailers and distributors. The detail depends on your role and jurisdiction, so check the current rules for your business.
Good practice
- Notify clearly and early for planned work, and tell customers how to find out if the work is cancelled or overruns.
- Give the contact centre the schedule so agents can confirm planned work immediately.
- Prepare unplanned outage scripts and IVR messages before storm season, with clear triage questions and escalation rules.
- Keep restoration times current, because a missed ETR generates its own wave of calls.
- Review after each major event to see which calls could have been prevented by better information.