As our community continues to grow and electrification increases energy demand, Oshawa Power is committed to ensuring a more reliable, resilient, and efficient electrical grid to power our city’s future. Our investments in SmartGrid technology, integrating automation and realtime analytics, has led to significant improvements in outage duration and frequency and better service for customers across Oshawa.
A Smarter, Stronger Grid for Oshawa
Traditional power grids were designed decades ago and relied on manual intervention to detect and fix outages. Today, with the implementation of Fault Location, Isolation, and Service Restoration (FLISR) technology, we’ve made significant advancements in how we respond to power disruptions. Integrating automation, sensors, and data-driven insights, our SmartGrid allows us to identify faults quickly, reroute power, and restore service faster than ever before.
How FLISR Works
FLISR technology improves grid performance by:
- Automatically detecting faults and voltage losses and isolating affected areas.
- Rerouting electricity to minimize the number of customers impacted and reducing many outages to momentary ‘flickers’.
- Providing realtime monitoring that enables faster response times through more accurate fault locating.
With this technology in place, Oshawa residents benefit from a more responsive and reliable grid that keeps the lights on and businesses running smoothly.
The Impact: Measurable Improvements in Reliability
Our investment in FLISR integration has already delivered impressive results:
- 78% reduction in yearly average customer downtime (System Average Interruption Duration Index – SAIDI) from 88 minutes to 19 minutes since 2022.
- 72% decrease in yearly outages per customer (System Average Interruption Frequency Index – SAIFI) from 1.04 to 0.28 since 2022.
- Faster outage response times, reducing downtime for homes and businesses.
Improved communication during outages through our live Outage Map and social media channels.
Enhancing Our Service & Supporting Electrification
Our grid modernization efforts aren’t just about reliability. We are focused on meeting the needs of our customers and preparing for a more sustainable, increasingly electrified future. Through realtime monitoring and predictive maintenance, Oshawa Power can optimize load distribution to meet our community’s needs while minimizing disruptions.
Key benefits include:
- Customers receive faster, more accurate outage notifications.
- More sustainable energy management in preparation for increases in adoption of renewable energy sources like solar and battery storage.
- Support for electric vehicles as adoption grows and electricity consumption shifts.
What’s Next?
Since launching with 8% of our grid integrated in December 2021, our FLISR system has expanded to cover 40% of our local electrical grid. As part of our Strategic Asset Management Plan, every new build, rebuild, and capital project will be integrated with a goal of 100% integration, ensuring continuous improvement in service reliability and grid resiliency.
Our journey toward a smarter, more reliable local SmartGrid is just beginning. By combining automation, data analytics, and a customer-focused approach, Oshawa Power is striving to set a new benchmark for electricity reliability in Ontario.
