In this session, a representative of Visayan Electric Co. will share the utility’s experiences related to restoration efforts during the blackout event and widespread destruction brought by Super Typhoon Rai (local name: Odette) in December 2021. The impact of the typhoon has been expansive and it’s important to know and visualize the extent and severity of damage to help in decision-making and prioritization. The scale of the work involved after the typhoon was unprecedented, thus, there were no standard operating procedures in place to handle the aftermath. The utility’s different operating units (customer service, line maintenance, system planning, etc) scrambled to make do with what they had and created systems as they went. Initially, this resulted in disparate data sources and a laborious process to create a single source of truth for monitoring the restoration progress. The rapid development of applications using a no-code platform has been beneficial to streamline the process workflow and reconcile information silos from different operating units. Data visualization using maps and dynamic dashboards has been crucial to monitor the progress and keep everyone informed and motivated despite the varying challenges during the restoration effort.

Session Chair:

Joyce LePage
IT Manager - Customer Digital Experience
DTE Energy