National Technical Reports Library

The National Technical Information Service acquires, indexes, abstracts, and archives the largest collection of U.S. government-sponsored technical reports in existence. The NTRL offers online, free and open access to these authenticated government technical reports. Technical reports and documents in its repository may be available online for free either from the issuing federal agency, the U.S. Government Publishing Office’s Federal Digital System website, or through search engines.

Details

Costs of Electric Power Outages to Manufacturers.

DE82010336

Publication Date	1981
Personal Author	Devine, W. D.; Boyd, D. A.
Page Count	82
Abstract	This study estimates the total costs of electric power outages to a number of manufacturers in the Tennessee Valley Authority service region. The damage suffered by a firm during an outage decreases with the fraction of the plant's load that is served internally during the power interruptions, whereas the cost of mitigating this damage via standby generation increases. Total outage costs are the sum of damage and mitigation costs and are minimized with standby generation of a particular capacity. Outage damage is approximated from estimates of costs that might be incurred when various portions of a plant's load are curtailed according to previously prepared emergency load curtailment plans. Minimum total outage costs for the plants studied were found to range between $50,000 and $1.6 million per year per plant, depending on the plant and the nature of the outage. For a single 1-hour outage per year, the average cost was $286,000; for ten 3-hour outages per year the average cost was $734,000. Optimum standby generating capacity was generally greater than that presently in place, but in only one instance did it total as much as 12% of a plant's normal load. Firms respond to the prospect of outages with investments to ameliorate damage, and these investments increase as the potential damage increases. To date, however, this investment has been mostly for redundancy in electricity disribution systems.
Keywords	Power systems Industrial plants Tennessee valley authority Outages Electric power Reliability Economic impact Cost ERDA/296000
Source Agency	Technical Information Center Oak Ridge Tennessee
NTIS Subject Category	97I - Electric Power Production
Corporate Authors	Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Inc., TN.; Department of Energy, Washington, DC.
Document Type	Technical Report
NTIS Issue Number	198221
Contract Number	AC05-76OR00033

Costs of Electric Power Outages to Manufacturers.

Costs of Electric Power Outages to Manufacturers.
DE82010336

Publication Date	1981
Personal Author	Devine, W. D.; Boyd, D. A.
Page Count	82
Abstract	This study estimates the total costs of electric power outages to a number of manufacturers in the Tennessee Valley Authority service region. The damage suffered by a firm during an outage decreases with the fraction of the plant's load that is served internally during the power interruptions, whereas the cost of mitigating this damage via standby generation increases. Total outage costs are the sum of damage and mitigation costs and are minimized with standby generation of a particular capacity. Outage damage is approximated from estimates of costs that might be incurred when various portions of a plant's load are curtailed according to previously prepared emergency load curtailment plans. Minimum total outage costs for the plants studied were found to range between $50,000 and $1.6 million per year per plant, depending on the plant and the nature of the outage. For a single 1-hour outage per year, the average cost was $286,000; for ten 3-hour outages per year the average cost was $734,000. Optimum standby generating capacity was generally greater than that presently in place, but in only one instance did it total as much as 12% of a plant's normal load. Firms respond to the prospect of outages with investments to ameliorate damage, and these investments increase as the potential damage increases. To date, however, this investment has been mostly for redundancy in electricity disribution systems.
Keywords	Power systems Industrial plants Tennessee valley authority Outages Electric power Reliability Economic impact Cost ERDA/296000
Source Agency	Technical Information Center Oak Ridge Tennessee
NTIS Subject Category	97I - Electric Power Production
Corporate Authors	Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Inc., TN.; Department of Energy, Washington, DC.
Document Type	Technical Report
NTIS Issue Number	198221
Contract Number	AC05-76OR00033