For Immediate Release:
January 29, 2009
Exacter, Inc. Completes Survey of 1 Million Overhead Distribution Poles: Findings to Be Published
(Columbus, OH) —After surveying its one millionth electric distribution pole this month, across more than 50,000 miles of line, EXACTER® Outage-Avoidance Services is beginning to shed new light onto the problems of our aging electrical distribution infrastructure. “We have gathered field data over the last two years and now we can predict how many components will fail, what specific pieces of equipment will fail, and how many of them will cause power outages,” states John Lauletta, President of Exacter, Inc. “The good news is that we have also identified specific places where utilities can channel resources that will make real impact for reducing outages, improving customer satisfaction, and reducing SAIFI/SAIDI indices.
Exacter uses proprietary Outage-Avoidance technology that is able to detect overhead line equipment in fail condition before a power outage occurs. The Exacter system has been used by more than 80 utilities over the last two years and field results are showing a 97.8% accuracy rate. “With the information we provide, utilities can take preemptive action on specific failing components on specific poles that will avoid power outages,” continued Lauletta. “According to the Dept. of Energy’s most recent study, the failing equipment we uncover causes 31% of all power outages.”
Exacter believes that utilities now have an opportunity to avoid a significant portion of outages that until now have been deemed “unavoidable”.
“After surveying more than a million poles, I believe we are in a position to weigh-in on this problem with a little authority,” continued Lauletta. “The fact is that 31% of all outages (more than 1.8 million per year) can now be identified and prevented with EXACTER technology. That is a huge breakthrough!”
Lauletta also shared specific statistics from their findings: “We can tell you that by a simple re-alignment of about 3-8% of outage mitigation budgets, utilities can begin to make significant impact on reducing outages, reducing SAIFI numbers, and improving customer satisfaction.”
Exacter Vice President Geoff Bibo summed it up best: “Surveying over a million poles is great, but what’s significant is the fact that utilities can now prevent outages that they couldn’t prevent two years ago — and they can do it at a fraction of the cost of other measures. Now that is good news for utilities!”
For more information:
John Lauletta, CEO
Exacter, Inc.
614-880-9320