Hey again Humble,
So here it is, the scheduled night shift.
I'll do my best to respond to selected points in your post in the order given; here goes.
You wrote: "Thanks davidbeach for your response. Indeed, we are including discussions with our regulatory peers. We in fact have a meeting this week, with our regulator, for discussions." So how did the meeting go? Any fleshing out of the path forward you can provide?
You also wrote: "Our main focus is on transmission networks." Excellent, because T & D is all we do; no generation of our own although we do of course deal with generating entities both large and small.
"The following challenges, seem to be consistent across some organizations: Transparency of various work activity schedule planning." True in our case, but within limits...
Distribution breakers [ from 13.8 through 44 kV ], but not the points downstream of them, are officially and putatively, as per Market Rules, "Bulk Power System Delivery Points," and as such outages to them are [ officially ] supposed to be reported to our Independent Electrical System Operator [IESO]. When the Rules first went into effect, we reported said outages to the IESO...for a little less than a week; seems they didn't have the tools or human resources to handle that volume of work. Since then both they and we have an agreement that absent any impact from these elements back into the Bulk Power System, we deploy them autonomously. Internal transparency exists between our Operations, Electrical Maintenance, Protection and Control, and Lines departments, and external entities such as Local Distribution Companies insofar as is needed to effectively co-ordinate outage planning. By way of example, we have no issues sharing distribution system element connectivities with one another, nor our individual outage plans, as each knowing when the other is doing what greatly facilitates bundling work in the most optimal manner. Power pricing, though, and other market considerations are not disclosed.
The latter stricture also applies to our HV grid [ > 50 kV ], perhaps even more so, since the stakes are higher; but other than for that information, outage plans are freely shared between the entities involved, viz., internally with Network Operations [that's us], [HV] Lines Construction and Lines Maintenance, the Tx Cable Crew, the aforementioned EMD and P&C, and externally with other Transmission Owners, our IESO, neighbouring IESOs, generating entities, grid-connected Local Distribution Companies, meaning those who play with the big boys by having their own HV-connected transformer stations, and so on, with the understanding that such outage information is tightly controlled and restricted to sharing between said entities on a need-to-know basis. Indeed, after our internal Continuous Rolling Outage Process meetings, planners attend Transmission System Outage Grouping meetings with external stakeholders to plan for future outages in the longer term and adjust to the inevitable changes that arise in the shorter term.
As to the planners themselves, Long Term Planners are looking more than four months out, Short Term Planners work a week to ten days out, and Mid Term Planners cover the ground in between. The STPs try to get outage plans in place no less than one week out, but those final few days are commonly the most frenetic ones since that's when all the last-minute changes come through.
"System security considerations" are predominantly addressed between Transmission Owners and IESOs; other entities may be aware that these can be highly impactive on their outage plans, and may become aware of such limitations in a general sense, but for reasons which should be obvious the exact concerns and the quantifiable limits involved are played very close to the vest.
"Complexity of Outage Management Procedure (OMP)" is something I could write on in only a very, very general sense; it can be all over the map, literally, depending on where in the world you are, as davidbeach has so succinctly observed, so I will say no more about it.
"Governance (adherence) of [to?] process" is something I have already touched on; in my world, for the most part, the players stick to the rules, although some of them have no compunction about attempting an end-run around them, and unfortunately too often such efforts succeed, since outage planners have no rock-solid power or authority to refuse outages, meaning much work goes into planning an outage with those engaged in the effort recognizing the futility of their labours, knowing the outage may be cancelled by real-time controllers, when these have the backing of their managers, which often enough they don't.
One bad thing is that when one spineless wimp with the purported authority to quash an outage allows an outage to proceed anyway in the face of glaring technical issues, such as, for example, allowing a generator who has only provided a shoe-string quality transfer trip system [ with highly problematic performance to match] for his facility to produce onto the grid anyway in the absence of reliable transfer tripping, that generator tells two friends, who tell two more friends, who...and the next thing you know Pandora's box has been opened and every single generator out there has the ammunition to 'prove' that he should also be allowed to generate in the same circumstance.
"Balancing network versus market management" is above my pay grade and beyond my sphere of influence.
"Setting work priorities" requires foresight and insight into power system operations, consequences, severity, working within budgets over which one has no control, and so on, and shares much with the next category...
"Managing conflicts of interest between stakeholders (regulators; generators; customers)" shares much with setting work priorities; it can be, and often is, quite the blacksmithing art, meaning that when the interests of the assorted parties to the outage conflict, there is no choice but to somehow hammer out an agreement. Unfortunately the tact, diplomacy, leadership, responsibility, accountability, wisdom and flexibility needed in such situations is often deplorably lacking in the individuals sent to the table on behalf of their entity, which leads to sub-optimal solutions being implemented.
Outage management software is a broad topic, and one which I cannot address to any great depth since we, as mentioned previously, use in-house software supported by an external contractor, a product that is proprietary and one that I am therefore not at liberty to say a great deal about.
"We are focused on systems for pro-active planning i.e. planning before outage, not systems that manage un-planned power blackouts (their location and customer call management etc. such as associated with Distribution utilities)." As I wrote above, we do both T & D, and deal with both planned and unplanned outages in both; our Outage Response Management System for unplanned outages keys quite nicely into our Network Outage Management System in the planning timeframe. I mention this only because there are synergies to be recognized and accommodated between planned and unplanned work.
"What is your organizations outage notification lead-time with Regulatory Authorities?" An absolute minimum of eighteen [18] calendar days prior for non-emergent work.
"How are outages negotiated with generators & big industry? Is this managed by dedicated relationship building and personal contact, by specialist managers, or by more autonomous means?" It depends...some industries seem to have enough clout to be the tail that wags the dog, so to speak; their edicts descend on us from on high. Others are more like peers, and the relationship is reasonably egalitarian. Still others are mere supplicants who have to take what they can get, although we try not to treat them harshly or unfairly.
Hope some of this is useful.
CR
"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." [Proverbs 27:17, NIV]
