When developing the distribution network, we take into consideration customer needs and long-term, sustainable urban development.
Delivery reliability of the electricity distribution network
Fortum owns, operates and develops regional and local electricity networks and supplies electricity to a total of 1.6 million customers in Finland, Sweden and Norway. The total length of the company’s network is 156,000 km, which is almost four times the circumference of the earth.
Continuous investments are made to renew, maintain and further improve network reliability. In 2011, EUR 289 million was invested in new power lines, isolating overhead lines, underground cables and automation of critical parts of the grid, i.e. a step towards a smarter grid with fewer and shorter outages.
The reliability of Fortum’s grids is high. For a number of years, the reliability trend has been positive and the reliability reached 99.98%. The severe storms at the end of 2011, and one of the strongest in 30 years in Finland, however, damaged Fortum’s network and caused power outages for many customers. As a result, the average interruption duration per customer increased by 5-fold and the overall reliability figure decreased to 99.90%. Fortum will increase investments in a more weather-proof network and has set a target to cut the number of power outages in half. The aim is also to double the number of customers currently within the scope of weather-proof distribution by 2020.
Delivery reliability of district heat and natural gas
The delivery reliability of district heat and natural gas is also close to 100%. Occasionally we have to interrupt the supply of district heat or natural gas when network modification or repair work is being performed or when we are connecting new buildings into the network. These interruptions, however, are generally short.
Fortum has about 5,400 kilometres of district heat network in Finland, Sweden, Poland and the Baltic countries. The reliability of the district heat networks is being improved by repairing anomalies found in conjunction with scheduled maintenance and by investing in new capacity when needed. When carrying out repairs that may cause interruptions, the aim is to schedule them outside the heating season.
All of Fortum’s district heat customers in Finland have been within the sphere of the smart meters since the beginning of 2010. With smart meters, the meter data is received in real time and the monitoring of heat consumption is more efficient.