Demonstration of the Inter-Organizational Situation Awareness System to Major Disturbances

There have been several problems in information exchange between organizations in the disturbances of the electricity supply. For instance, in Finland one municipality had problems to reach their local DSO (Distribution System Operator) during a disturbance in 2011. They had only the phone number of the DSO’s customer service, which was congested. Usually in disturbances, municipalities and authorities receive information from DSOs’ web pages, like transformer level maps or lists that show the outages and their duration, and by phone conversations. In general, it can be said that the inter-organizational situation awareness in disturbance situations is needed. After the storms in Finland in December 2011 the Finnish Electricity Market act was changed so that DSOs should participate in the formation of situation awareness and supply any information relevant to this purpose to the responsible authorities.

The paper presents a demonstration of the interorganizational situation awareness system developed in this research. The demonstration consists of an internet service which combines information about disturbances in the electricity supply from DSOs’ information systems and information from other actors. The demonstration illustrates how the exchange of information between actors can be executed by using a situation awareness system. It extends the integration of DMS (Distribution Management System) in an unusual direction by taking the other actors into account.