NES Launches Outage Map Enhancements

Image courtesy of The Tennessee Tribune under Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic Deed, resized to 700 x 391 pixels.

There’s a new and improved outage map covering Nashville, which truly warms my heart from an emergency preparedness perspective!  Specifically, Nashville Electric Service (NES) has bolstered its online outage reporting tool, making it easier for customers to report and track power outages. The nifty tool, available on the NES website and mobile app, provides customers with real-time information about outages, including estimated restoration times.

Overview of Nashville Electric Service’s New and Improved Outage Map

The outage map, which is updated every 15 minutes, provides a color-coded view of the NES footprint to indicate the location and extent of outage activity.  Customers can zoom in to see the outages in their neighborhood and view the number of customers affected.  Customers can also report an outage online or through the NES mobile app and track the status of the outage.

Personally, I love outage maps, but they must be functional, informative, accurate, current, and user friendly.  This is why I was excited to learn about the enhancements NES announced, which include:

• Data improvements: The outage map now includes more detail about the location and extent of outages, as well as estimated restoration times.
• Mobile app enhancements: The app has been updated with a new outage reporting feature, and customers can now report outages and track their status directly from their mobile device.
• Ability to send proactive notifications: NES now sends customers proactive notifications about outages in their area (note, customers must sign up via email, text message, or phone call).
• Improved ETR visibility: Customers can now see details around estimated restoration times (ETRs), which are based on the type of outage, the number of customers affected, and the availability of crews.

In summary, I LOVE this tool and I’m glad I had an opportunity to read up on its recent enhancements.  It seems like the NES outage map is now even more user-friendly and informative, which is fantastic and will hopefully inspire other electric utilities to follow suit.