Maintain a quality committee with regular meetings that has the function of monitoring the performance of the electricity supply and product quality indicators, in addition to following the action plans established by the business areas. This committee should encourage and ensure that quality indicators are presented daily or weekly to employees at hierarchical levels (from managers to electricians). Meetings and panels are used to demonstrate the evolution of these indicators. With the committee support there is a constant search in other companies in the electricity distribution sector that are references in their indicators of continuity and quality.

An operation center and maintenance crews are available 24/7 to manage contingencies in distribution systems. The operation center must be available 100% of the time since the maintenance crews must be on call and can be activated when necessary. The specific crews are available to permit inspection in difficult to access zones. For all regions there must be maintenance crews to cover the entire population served and for areas with a higher population density there must be interconnections of distribution networks that allow the supply of electricity by more than one source.

There is a department that has the function of analyzing the continuity and quality indicators of electricity. This department must provide reports to executives and help other departments to direct their actions to improve these indicators. This department has a control methodology for calculating quality indicators with certification recognized as ISO 9000. Within the scope of this area, analyses are carried out to identify zones at risk of not complying with electricity supply and distribution service, and, if this is the case, appropriate actions are identified. Trends in continuity of supply and (when applicable) the economic results (periodic evaluation and revision of the continuity practices are suggested) are analyzed. Lastly, the utility should engage the regulator to discuss how investments in monitoring voltage control are recognized by the authorities on the capital investment and operational costs.

The utility must have protocols and standards to perform corrective and preventive maintenance in the power substations and networks. There are safety plans for contingencies regarding the quality of the supply and distribution of electrical energy. It is also recommended a verification of operational status of supply and distribution system elements for which visual inspection or operational test is possible is carried out at least once every 3 years and for the strategic systems every 1 year. For this maintenance and operation, it is also necessary that GIS tools are available to support isolation, repair, and resolution of contingencies in supply and distribution systems. In systems with various alternative supply sources, operation center protocols exist to assure quality of electrical energy on initial use of new supply sources (sources and interconnections), as protocols exist to analyze and resolve non-compliance with applicable regulations regarding the quality of the supply and distribution of electrical energy.

The use of new distributed energy technologies (PV systems, fuel cells, energy storage, and electric vehicles) connected to the grid requires improvements in all interconnection standards to define the requirements that these technologies must need for safe and reliable integration with utility electrical networks. These standards address issues such as power quality and voltage limits for example. In many countries, local regulations will provide for these procedures, however when this does not occur, countries can use IEEE references such as IEEE 1366 and IEEE 1547.

Natural events can lead to outages with prolonged load interruptions. Although such events are characterized by a high level of unpredictability, utilities have ways of reducing and mitigating their consequences. Some practices for each type of event can be used:

• Floods: A change identification method to map floods in urban areas using satellite images can be used where the idea is to classify images near rivers and forecast where a new flood is likely to happen. The aim is to find the optimal hardening plan for the system resilience and the optimal functioning of the electric power system under the worst event. Some possible actions are: (i) pre-allocation of mobile energy generators; (ii) replan the optimal switching locations using distributed energy resources locations; and (iii) review the current power grid to feed critical clients

• Hurricanes: These events result in a forced reduction in load because of distribution equipment damage In these situation some solutions are: (i) invest in an operation using microgrids concepts in a distribution system to increase the self-healing ability and enable the distribution system to heal sooner during outage occurrence; (ii) use proactive scheduling in response to imminent hurricanes in multiple energy carrier microgrid; (iii) a self-healing methodology by sectionalizing the distribution system into microgrid after the occurrence of a natural disaster can be used; (iv) During hurricanes, develop a method to alleviate the cascading effect in transmission networks using a risk-based preventive islanding method

• Windstorms can cause equipment failure when hitting the power grid. To mitigate such effects, utilities must carry out customized projects for transmission and distribution lines for regions with a higher incidence of these events. In the first stage, empirical models are created based on historical and weather data. The second stage involves the real-time tracking of windstorms. During the design of new or assessing the old transmission lines, an acceptable level of compromise between cost and probability of failure must be maintained. In addition, it is possible to establish a framework for microgrids proactive management to coordinate demand-side resources, secure voltage regulation, and generation rescheduling.

• Wildfires can cause intense temperature, leading to an explosion of transformers and changing dielectric and mechanical properties of T&D lines. Some possible solutions are to: (i) substitute oil-immersed transformers with dry types; (ii) apply real-time transmission line monitoring to identify the dynamic line rating during normal or contingency cases; (iii) use a cost-effective fire detection mechanism with different technologies; (iv) use distributed framework of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles to avoid humans from dangerous dynamic fire tracking. It reduces the operational cost, correctly tracks the fire progress, avoids in-flight crashes, and collaborate well with nearby vehicles.

• Lightning strokes is one of the prime factors of unplanned supply interruptions in power systems. Some classical solutions are: (i) cost-effective equipment can be installed on the distribution and transmission lines to find the path of a lightning strike; (ii) correctly use of surge arresters to reduce the induced voltages, that is, surge arresters perform better when grounding resistance is lower and the adjacent arresters have shorter distances; and (iii) install shielding wire to decrease the lightning stroke frequency on the power lines.

The electric power distribution system must be able to supply all the electric power demand for the different load levels and improving system redundancy is an important enhancement to improve reliability.

Electrical power supply and distribution infrastructure design is conceived to minimize impact due to contingencies and to comply with service standards (quality and continuity) and to renew supply and distribution system elements that take into account the risk of impact on service continuity. In this way, distribution network design criteria exist that consider the quality of the supply and distribution of electrical energy, as the planning and operation in infrastructure adopt criteria to prevent risk of service interruption and unintended variations in quality (voltage, frequency, capacity and others).In planning, the utilities must use the criterion called N-1, that is, the electricity supply must be maintained even if 1 equipment fails in the system, for some customers with high criticality, it is possible to use N-2 criteria . In the operation, with communication and metering technologies, reconfiguration and an islanding scheme of DG are possible methods that can help implement differentiated reliability.

For new assets, protocols exist to assure the quality of electrical energy when integrating new infrastructure and the use the possibilities offered by smart meters, without excessive price increase for customers; as the capabilities of smart meters to the extent and benefits possible but also to ensure that voltage quality monitoring through smart meters does not result in an excessive increase in the price of the meters or tariffs for the network users. And for these new works and planned interruptions, it is important that customers are notified in advance, so the impact of power outages is minimized.

The engineering team, in addition to seeking innovations and new technologies, must also be constantly improving current processes, such as:

a) Substations and powergrids Design: It is important to standardize the design of electrical networks and substations, because this can minimize effort and time in new projects and it will also help to standardize maintenance and operation plans that can be executed consistently at minimum cost.

b) Manufacturer: it is recommended that the manufacturer may be asked to provide maintenance services for warranty period. This will ensure single point responsibility for manufacturing and maintenance issues. The costs associated with an annual maintenance contract may be included in the initial cost of the equipment.

The use of companies that perform engineering and support activities is encouraged, and the contracts established must have their payments conditioned to performance indicators (execution time, technical indicators, energy efficiency, and others). For main activities, it is also recommended that outsourced companies be used to establish an efficient cost benchmark between activities developed internally and by third parties. In general, there are three types of contracts that are used:

a. Full-Coverage Service Contract: A full-coverage service contract provides 100% coverage of labor, parts, and materials as well as emergency service and preventive maintenance. The Contract must be measured and paid for the performance of the equipment for which it is responsible. This type of contract is recommended for areas where the company has low coverage or for the most critical equipment. Full-coverage contracts are usually the most expensive type of agreement in the short term. In the long term, however, such a contract may prove to be the most cost-effective, depending on the owner’s O&M objectives. Advantages of full-coverage contracts are ease of budgeting and the fact that most of the risk is carried by the contractor. However, if the contractor is not reputable or underestimates the requirements of the equipment to be insured, the contractor may do only enough preventive maintenance to keep the equipment barely running until the end of the contract period.

b. Full-Labor Service Contract: A full-labor service contract covers 100% of the labor to repair, replace, and maintain most equipment. The owner is required to purchase all equipment and parts. Some preventive maintenance services can be included in the agreement along with minor materials. This can be the second most expensive contract regarding short-term impact on the maintenance budget. This type of contract is usually advantageous for medium or big companies who can buy in bulk and obtain equipment, parts, and materials at reduced cost. For small companies, cost control and budgeting become more complicated with this type of contract, in which labor is the only constant. Because they are responsible only for providing labor, the contractor’s risk is less with this type of contract than with a full-coverage contract.

c. Preventive-Maintenance Service Contract: The preventive-maintenance contract is generally purchased for a fixed fee and includes several scheduled activities. Generally, the contractor provides the materials as part of the contract. The contract may or may not include arrangements regarding repairs or emergency calls. This type of contract is recommended only for specific situations, such as substations and special equipment (voltage regulator, capacitor bank, reclosers, etc.). The main advantage of this type of contract is that it is initially less expensive than either the full-service or full-labor contract and provides the owner with an agreement that focuses on quality preventive maintenance. However, budgeting and cost control regarding emergencies, repairs, and replacements is more difficult because these activities are often done on a time-and- materials basis. With this type of contract, the owner takes on most of the risk. Without a clear understanding of preventive-maintenance requirements, an owner could end up with a contract that provides either too much or too little.

Individual annual accounting analyses are carried out for operating and maintenance costs as a whole and for system. Also, individual monthly accounting analyses are carried out for main system facilities, these comprise, at the very least, the technical service units, customer service, units/crews of new investments and corrective maintenance. For these evaluations, individual and segregated accounting analyses are carried out for the main components of these operating costs.

Rates of return: Achieving a rate of return is an important aspect in ensuring that company activities are operating like comparable businesses. In cost management, setting appropriate rates of return for each separate line of commercial or technical activity is an important factor to avoid cross-subsidization. Only projects and initiatives with a reasonable rate of return can be executed. For SOEs, its productivity should be benchmarked with similar business activities in the same industry and private companies. For this evaluation minimally the following criteria must be used for new projects: (a) simple payback; (b) return on investment; (c) net present value; and (d) life-cycle cost.

In general, new investments in power systems seek primarily to meet the increased load of customers, however it is important to seek investments that are directed exclusively at reducing the outage duration and/or number of customers affected for specific outages, such as:

• Install an additional fuse: all outages that are related to a specific location have a probability of reducing the number of customers affected.

• Install sectionalizers: It can isolate faulty portion of distribution line and return service to the circuit.

• Replace a fuse with a recloser: all outages related to the fuse that is replaced and causes such as lightning, trees, birds, etc. have a high probability of reducing the duration of outage.

• Place short distribution line underground: all outages on this feeder with most causes (e.g. lightning, trees, traffic accidents, etc.) are removed (the utility can select just some areas for this step)

• Add bird spikes / reflectors: all outages related to birds have a probability of removing the outage.

• Add a barrier to prevent car accidents from causing outages: outages at the location a barrier is added have a probability of being removed.

• Increase the utility spending on media outreach to improve awareness and response time: the duration of outage has a probability of being reduced.

• Install electric energy storage (EES) in rural communities or distant from urban centers, where the installation of cross connects are not economic or even feasible and so maintaining an allowable level of SAIDI.