This monsoon season Salt River Project electric customers now have access to more information, thanks to improvements that have been added during the year to SRP’s online Power Outage Map.
The SRP power outage page has been reimaged and allows for easier navigation. On mobile devices, the map is full screen and allows users easier control. Also, reporting an outage is now integrated into the outage page.
“We are constantly looking to improve our customers’ ability to learn about power outages in their area,” said Glen Traasdahl, director of SRP Technology Services. “By looking at what services our customers use and combining it with their valuable feedback, we roll out improvements all year long.”
The new-look outage page now contains more accurate information about each outage, with color-coded boxes that better describe the size of the outage. For example, during the season’s first summer storm on July 3 when more than 14,000 customers were out of power, SRP’s outage map looked like a rainbow with multi-colored boxes showing specific outages in yellow (1 to 100 customers affected), orange (101 to 500 affected), red (501 to 1,000 affected) and purple (more than 1,001 affected). Also, if the outage is a major one in which customers will be out of power for an extended period, a blue box will show the location of where customers can go to pick up free ice.
SRP is also working to provide faster, real-time information, with a goal of providing customers an outage update within 30 minutes of the start of the outage, said Wayne Wisdom, SRP’s director of Electric System Operations. He said that quicker information should be available later this summer.
“We’ll communicate the actual cause in the 30 minutes after the outage has begun for as many outages as we can,” said Wisdom. “If we are not able to determine the cause in this first 30 minutes, we’ll at least update the outage reason within 30 minutes by letting customers know that we’re investigating it and will get a cause identified as soon as we can.”
Wisdom said SRP currently represents outages based on geographical boundaries. Any customer who has signed up for e-notification and whose account lies within those boundaries is notified, he said.
“In the future we may still describe the outage based on a geographical boundary, but we will only notify those customers who are actually affected by the power outage. This means we’ll be able to be more descriptive in our communications,” he said. “For example, today we indicate that a power outage has been reported in your area. In the future, we’ll be able to say that your account/premise is being affected by a power outage.”
SRP first made its expanded power outage map available for all customers in advance of the 2012 monsoon season. Prior to that, the website feature was available only to SRP customers with a My Account ID. That was also the first summer storm season in which the SRP outage map was made available from a smart phone or tablet, which is particularly valuable to affected customers who are looking for real-time information about the estimated time that power will be restored.
By signing up for a notification on My Account, SRP’s online management tool, customers are also able to be alerted via email or text when their home is in an area where an outage has occurred. SRP also routinely posts updates and outage information on Twitter and Facebook during major storms. To get connected, follow @SRPconnect on Twitter or “like” SRP’s Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/srpconnect. During a power outage, SRP customer service representatives can be reached at (602) 236-8888.
SRP is the largest provider of electricity to the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, providing electric service to more than 990,000 customers.
