Habersham EMC
Habersham EMC partners with DRG to utilize Exacter technology and infrared assessments to reduce outage minutes and boost customer service.
The Challenge
Incorporated 80 years ago, Habersham EMC provides energy services to residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural members in Georgia’s Habersham, Hall, Lumpkin, Rabun, Stephens and White counties. The company started when neighbors, farmers and linemen got together to form their own electric co-op and helped build lines.
The same enthusiasm and hard work that started the company continues to connect this community today. Forestry and line crews maintain 3,777 miles of power lines and keep power running for 30,000 members.
An electric cooperative’s largest goal is reliability for its customers, mitigating as many electric outages as possible ahead of schedule. For that reason, being pro-active is extremely important to Habersham EMC.
The Solution
Davey Resource Group (DRG) recommended that Habersham utilize Exacter predictive asset health analytics, infrared camera patrols and visual inspections to lessen power outages by identifying potential problems and fixing them before they cause outages. Exacter patented technology tracks down problematic emissions while infrared assessments find high temperatures of electric equipment – both of which are early signs of failure. Making repairs now will prevent the problem before it occurs.
Once DRG identifies troubles spots, they present a report to the client, providing insights into points of risk and further enhancing asset management strategies by an analysis through HEMC’s connectivity model. This analysis allows the Utility to prioritize maintenance based on the potential CMI that will occur when the equipment fails. The overall goal is to improve CMI, SAIDI, and SAIFI.
The Results
DRG’s GIS team accesses key data, using it to prioritize work by risk level. Problems with a higher risk can be fixed first, maximizing efficiency. For Habersham EMC, DRG targeted 510 miles of 3-phase distribution lines—approximately 10 weeks of work. DRG found 60 problematic areas for repair. If all 60 components would have failed, approximately 6,200 customers would have suffered an outage. DRG presented their data to the electric cooperative and Habersham made the recommended repairs as soon as possible, resulting in a prevention of 14.5 SAIDI minutes.
With these improvements, Habersham upheld their mission “to improve the quality of life in local communities through reliable and affordable services while operating in the best interest of our members.”
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