Automated Outage Planning and Accelerated Reliability with ANODE
A major transmission utility, responsible for powering millions, is making multi-billion-dollar investments each year to expand grid capacity and support the energy transition.
This scale of infrastructure development demands meticulous coordination, especially when it comes to outages.
Every planned upgrade must be balanced against the need to maintain uninterrupted service. But coordinating hundreds of planned and unplanned outages across a vast and dynamic system is a high-stakes puzzle. Delays can mean more than missed deadlines—they can trigger costly financial penalties, increase risk to grid reliability, and slow the pace of clean energy integration.
Outage planning used to be a largely manual process. Engineers relied on traditional methods to model power flow, check for reliability issues, and adjust schedules as grid conditions evolved. These time-consuming workflows couldn’t keep pace with the scale or complexity of today’s grid.
Key obstacles included:
- Manual, error-prone workflows that slowed down study completion and introduced unnecessary delays.
- “Project churn” — a costly cycle of rescheduled outages and delayed upgrades, driven by real-time changes and unexpected conflicts.
- Limited ability to look ahead and simulate long-term impacts across an increasingly complex system.
- Mounting financial pressure from interest on capital investments and the risk of penalties due to reliability violations.
Grid operations are never static — weather events, supply chain issues, and shifting load demands can all force last minute changes. Engineers needed a better way to adapt quickly, analyze outage scenarios at scale, and plan proactively.
ANODE (Analysis on Demand)
Outage Planning Platform
To solve this, we partnered with the utility to develop ANODE (Analysis on Demand), a next-generation analytics platform purpose-built to modernize outage coordination. Designed by engineers for engineers, ANODE streamlines complex reliability studies and helps utilities schedule outages more intelligently.
Key capabilities include:
- Automated Power Flow & Peer Checks: Eliminate manual bottlenecks and catch reliability issues earlier.
- N-1-1 and Cascading Risk Analysis: Rapidly assess potential outage impacts and simulate system vulnerabilities.
- Multi-Year Planning Horizon: Run long-term scenario studies to optimize for both near- and far-term investments.
- Outage Scheduling Optimization: Identify the best windows for outages to reduce conflicts and delay.
- Solar PV Integration & Ad Hoc Studies: Model renewable impacts and tailor studies to evolving priorities.
- Dashboards for Key Accounts & Communication: Share clear insights with stakeholders and support coordination.
Built with a modern, intuitive interface and a scalable backend, ANODE empowers reliability engineers to move from reactive triage to proactive planning.
Faster Studies, Fewer Delays, Smarter Planning
The rollout of ANODE has transformed how the utility
approaches outage coordination:
Up to 1000x Study Speed Gains
$4.5M in Annual Savings from Reduced Churn
$1.25M in Potential Labor Cost Avoidance
Improved Grid Reliability & Risk Mitigation
Quantifying the Transformation
| BEFORE | AFTER | |
|---|---|---|
| Outage Study Throughput | Manual, slow, limited | ↑ Up to 1000x increase |
| Project Churn & Delays | Frequent, costly | ↑ ~$4.5M in annual savings |
| Labor Demand | Increasing workload required more hires | ↓ ~$1.25M in avoided costs |
| Reliability Penalties | High risk due to limited analysis | ↓ Lower risk through better planning |
| Planning Horizon | Short-term focus | ↑ Multi-year simulations enabled |
Scaling Reliability with Smarter Tools
ANODE is more than a software tool, it’s a force multiplier. By automating core workflows, enabling deeper analysis, and supporting faster, more confident decision-making, ANODE helps this leading utility accelerate grid upgrades while preserving reliability and reducing risk.
In a time of unprecedented grid transformation, ANODE shows what’s possible when software and power systems engineering come together. For transmission operators grappling with the scale and complexity of modern infrastructure, it’s a blueprint for how to plan smarter, move faster, and deliver more reliable energy, now and in the future.