Key performance indicators for an improved grid

The physical power grid is an engineering work designed to satisfy a set of requirements that emerged over time from the interactions of both compatible and conflicting interests of different stakeholder groups. This paper develops a high level concept of the additional key performance indicators needed by these organizations to assure effective ongoing operation and maintenance of the power grid, including the ability to evaluate effectively the various grid improvements under active research and development. The result is a preliminary set of numeric indicators which function as the dashboard gauges for operators and regulators. Crucially, these indicators include various market-related cost factors, such as cost of money, fuel costs, actual reserves, weather, environmental costs, in addition to the traditional focus on service quality. Rather than blindly pursuing a traditional quality goal (such as four 9´s), operators and regulators have gauges that are both high-level enough to be usable, and fine-grained enough to offer insights into where the operations and maintenance budget ought to be spent.