Minutes Matter.
Customers Are Counting.
Every minute of an unrestored outage erodes your CI/CML performance against regulatory targets (Ofgem, CRE, BNetzA), reduces customer satisfaction scores, and accumulates SAIDI minutes that your national energy regulator will scrutinise in the next price control review. Argus tracks every outage from sub-60-second smart metre detection through full restoration with AI-powered isolation planning, network topology tracing, and real-time customer communication , reducing restoration duration by 20-40% compared to legacy OMS platforms.
Faster restoration starts with smarter intelligence at every stage of the outage lifecycle , not just faster vehicles.
From Detection to Restoration. Every Step Tracked.
An outage is not a single event , it is a cascade of decisions, actions, and communications spread across 8 lifecycle stages. Each stage transition must be timestamped, attributed, and documented for CEER reliability reporting and national regulator audit scrutiny. Legacy OMS platforms lose outages between stages , a crew dispatched at 2:14 AM that never arrived because they were diverted, leaving 200 customers without supply until the morning shift noticed. Argus tracks every stage transition automatically, flags stalled outages, and escalates when an outage has been in 'crew dispatched' status for longer than the expected travel time.
Detected
Outage detected in under 60 seconds via smart metre last-gasp events (DLMS/COSEM), SCADA relay trip operations, or customer contact centre reports
Network Intelligence That Accelerates Restoration.
The difference between a 45-minute outage and a 3-hour outage is rarely about repair speed , it is about how quickly you isolate the fault, transfer load to alternate feeds, and restore the maximum number of customers while the repair crew works. Legacy OMS platforms treat outages as pins on a map. Argus understands your network topology , every switch, every fuse, every tie point, every conductor rating , and uses that understanding to recommend switching sequences, simulate customer impact before you open or close a switch, and identify alternate feed paths you did not know existed.
Intelligent Isolation
Argus analyses your network topology in real time to recommend the switching sequence that isolates the faulted section while minimising the number of customers who lose supply. Before recommending any switch operation, it validates: no parallel path creation, no overloaded conductors, no voltage violations per EN 50160, no energising of grounded circuits, and no safety interlock violations. The recommended sequence includes estimated customer impact at each step , so your dispatcher knows that opening SW-44 restores 312 customers while leaving 185 isolated for repair.
- Automated switching sequence recommendations ranked by customer impact minimisation
- Pre-switch customer impact simulation , see exactly how many customers are affected before operating
- Safety interlock validation per your switching procedure rules and ENTSO-E operational requirements
- Switching order documentation generated automatically for regulatory compliance and post-event audit
Not All Customers Are Equal. Prioritise What Matters.
A 200-customer outage affecting a dialysis centre is not the same as a 200-customer outage in a residential area , and your OMS should know the difference. National consumer protection regulations across Europe require DSOs to maintain a Priority Services Register or equivalent vulnerable customer list and provide priority notification and restoration. Argus automatically flags vulnerable customers in every outage event, prioritises critical facilities, and provides accurate restoration predictions driven by AI , because customer research shows that restoration estimate accuracy is the single largest driver of customer satisfaction during outages.
Vulnerable Customers
Customers on the Priority Services Register or national equivalent , those dependent on electrically powered medical equipment (oxygen concentrators, ventilators, home dialysis), elderly residents, and medically fragile individuals. National regulations typically require notification within 1 hour and priority restoration. Argus flags these customers within 30 seconds of outage detection.
Critical Facilities
Hospitals (generator fuel typically lasts 48-72 hours), dialysis centres, care homes, trauma centres, and blood banks. Loss of supply beyond generator fuel capacity triggers patient evacuation at significant cost per facility.
Government & Emergency Services
Police stations, fire stations, 112 centres, emergency coordination centres, water treatment plants, wastewater pumping stations, traffic management centres, and military installations. Loss cascades across all public safety functions.
Industrial & Data Centres
Manufacturing facilities (process interruption costs EUR 50,000-500,000/hour for continuous process operations), data centres (SLA penalties of EUR 10,000+/hour), pharmaceutical clean rooms, and food processing plants.
Commercial
Retail, office, small business, restaurants, fuel stations, grocery stores, and pharmacies. Prioritised by customers restored per crew-hour , a single feeder restoration serving a commercial district may restore hundreds of businesses in one switching operation.
Residential
Residential customers prioritised by outage duration (longest-out-first after backbone restoration), customer count per device (maximise customers per crew-hour), and vulnerability flags from CIS records.
Estimated Time of Restoration
AI-powered restoration predictions trained on your DSO's historical data , same circuit, same cause, same weather conditions. The model achieves 85% accuracy within 2 hours of actual restoration, compared to the industry-average 50-60% accuracy from dispatcher estimates. Estimates update continuously as crew status, weather, and damage assessment data change.
Estimated Time of Restoration
- Historical restoration times for the same circuit, same cause category, same weather type over the past 5 years
- Current crew GPS location, travel time to site (traffic-aware routing), and estimated repair duration
- Real-time weather conditions , wind speed restrictions for aerial work platform operation, lightning hold policies
- Material availability on the assigned vehicle versus depot distance if additional materials are needed
Understand the Cause. Prevent the Next One.
Every outage has a root cause , and most DSOs suffer from the same causes year after year. CEER benchmarking data shows that weather causes 25-35% of outages, equipment failure causes 20-30%, and vegetation causes 15-25%. But the averages mask the real story: your worst-performing feeder may have 10x the vegetation-related outages of your best feeder. Argus categorises, tracks, and analyses causes by circuit, by season, and by geography , so you invest your vegetation management, infrastructure replacement, and animal protection budgets where they deliver the greatest SAIDI reduction per euro spent.
Weather
Storm damage, lightning strikes (30% of transformer failures during storm season), ice loading on conductors and trees, wind damage to overhead lines and structures, and flood damage to underground and pad-mount equipment
Equipment Failure
Transformer failures (DGA trending, thermal overload, through-fault damage), switch and ring main unit malfunctions, underground cable faults (water treeing, joint failures), and age-related deterioration of conductor, insulators, and hardware approaching end of design life
Vegetation
Tree contact with overhead lines (grow-in and fall-in), root intrusion into underground duct banks, and vegetation management cycle gaps. Feeders with completed trim cycles experience 60-70% fewer vegetation outages than feeders with deferred trimming.
Animal Contact
Bird, squirrel, and marten contact with overhead and underground equipment (responsible for 5-10% of outages in suburban/rural territories), raptor nesting in substations, and burrowing animal damage to underground cables. Animal protection installation on ring main units and substation equipment reduces animal-caused outages by 70-80%.
Vehicular Impact
Vehicle collisions with utility poles and cabinets, underground cable strikes during excavation, and crane/equipment contact with overhead lines during construction activity. National one-call system compliance reduces third-party strikes.
System Overload
Peak demand exceeding transformer and conductor thermal ratings (especially during heat waves), capacitor bank failures during high-load conditions, and cascading protection operations when a single failure shifts load to adjacent circuits already near capacity
Third-Party Damage
Construction dig-ins (the leading cause of underground cable damage), unauthorised attachment to poles, vandalism and cable theft, and contractor activities near overhead lines without proper notification
Planned Maintenance
Scheduled outages for equipment replacement, network upgrades, and system improvements. Tracked separately per CEER methodology for planned versus unplanned SAIDI/SAIFI and reported to national regulators. Minimised through live-line working, temporary generation, and load transfer.
Every Minute Counts. Every Customer Matters.
JRC research estimates that power outages cost the European economy billions of euros annually. Your share of that cost appears in regulatory revenue deductions, customer churn, and the reputational damage that follows every major event. Outages are inevitable , ageing infrastructure, severe weather, and animals guarantee that. But slow restoration is not inevitable. It is a choice. Argus gives your operations team the intelligence to detect outages in under 60 seconds, isolate faults in under 5 minutes, and restore customers 20-40% faster , while keeping every stakeholder informed with accurate, AI-driven restoration predictions.
The difference between a well-managed outage and a crisis is not luck , it is the intelligence behind your response. Network topology awareness, AI-powered isolation, predictive restoration estimates, and automated customer communication transform how your DSO handles every outage, every day.
Your customers are counting the minutes. Give your team the tools to make every minute count.
Talk to an Outage Management SpecialistIntegrates with your existing SCADA/DMS (Siemens, ABB, Schneider Electric), smart metre head-end (Landis+Gyr, Itron, Sagemcom, ZIV via DLMS/COSEM), GIS (Esri, Hexagon, Smallworld), and CIS/billing systems. Deployed on-premises or in EU sovereign cloud. Replaces or augments legacy OMS platforms. Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.