POCP Database Help

The POCP has been upgraded as of Monday, 25th of August. If you encounter any issues please contact Richard Clark at richard@redspider.co.nz or by phone on 0800 020 478.
  1. Search options
  2. Search result viewing options
  3. Outage field descriptions
  4. Grouping

Search options

There are a number of different search options, allowing for accurate filtering to provide only the information needed. They can be used in combination.

Outage Block

The Outage Block field at the top left of the search screen allows any part of the outage plant/block to be specified. Multiple entries should be separated by a comma.

ID

The ID field allows matching on the asset-owner supplied outage ID. Since the Asset Owner supplies this information directly, more than one Asset Owner may use the same ID. In general however this case is rare and does not cause problems.

Date

The Active fields permit matching by date. Outages are matched if they are active at any time within the region specified. The region can be specified as either explicitly between two dates, or a certain number of days from today.

Owner

Either one or multiple owners may be selected.

Category

There are five different types of planned outage, which may be searched separately or together:

Direct Connection
Equipment owned or operated by end-users of electricity that are directly connected to New Zealand's power system.
Generation
Equipment owned or operated by Generators
Transmission
Equipment owned or operated by Transmission networks
Distribution
Equipment owned by Distribution networks
Embedded Generation
Generation not dispatched by the System Operator

Planning status

One of four outage states defined by the uploading Asset Owner:

Tentative
The planned outage may occur
Confirmed
The planned outage will occur
Cancelled
The planned outage has been cancelled
Completed
The planned outage was completed

Region

The region is defined by the Grid Points specified in the outage. Each Grid Point is tied to a region, so an outage with multiple Grid Points may exist in multiple regions.

Available regions are North North Island, South North Island and South Island.

Search result options

There are two fields which determine how the results of a search are viewed or ordered:

Order by

Order by changed the order of the resulting outages on the page, sorting by one of the following fields:

Start time
The results are ordered by start time, with the nearest start time first.
Last modified
The results are ordered by the date of last change to the outage, with the nearest modified time first.

In addition, clicking on the underlined Plant on the left of any row will take you to the outage details screen displaying more information and history of changes.

Outage fields

A description of each field is provided:

Outage ID
Defines the outage ID used by the Asset Owner. The database uses the outage ID to differentiate new outages from changed outages.
Outage Block
Outage Block is identified by the station or transmission circuit asset code.
Group
Optional group ID linking the outage to other related outages.
Outage Start
The start field shows the date and time of day the outage will commence. Time of day is given in 24 hour format.
Outage End
The end field shows the date and time of day the outage will commence. Time of day is given in 24 hour format.
Outage Time Type
Defines the type of outage as either continuous or daily. A continuous outage means that the outage is continuous throughout the time specified between the start and end date/times. Daily outage means that the event occurs each day between the start and end times specified, until the end date.
Owner
Defines the Asset Owner responsible for uploading the planned outage data.
GPs
Shows the Grid Points involved in the current outage. A master list of all GPs used in the POCP is available here
Category
Shows the type of outage. May be any of Transmission, Generation, Direct Connection, Distribution, Embedded Generation
MW Remaining
Shows the MW remaining while the outage is active. For Load, shows the load still drawn while the outage is active.
MW Lost
Shows the MW lost from normal (normal - remaining) while the outage is active. For Load, shows the load no longer drawn while the outage is active
MVar Remaining
Shows the MVar remaining while the outage is active. WARNING: counter-intuitively, for Load only, this is field is MVar Lost instead due to the difficulty of estimating the MVar remaining value.
Planning Status
Defines the current planning status for the outage, as defined by the uploading Asset Owner. May be tentative, confirmed, completed or cancelled.
Recall Time
Defines the outage recall time if known
Nature
The outage nature if the outage is for Transmission, otherwise empty.
Coordination notes
Any other relevant details provided by the Asset Owner
Uploaded
The date and time when the outage was first uploaded to the POCP
Modified
The date and time of the last change to the outage
Potential Code Issue?
A flag and comment from the System Operator if the outage will cause a potential code issue.
Outage History
Tracks changes made to the outage previously.

Grouping

Outages can be grouped together by using the same group ID for all outages. Each asset owner can set group IDs independently and there are no permissions related to groups, the POCP assumes that two outages with the same group ID are intended to be in the same group.

When searching, it is possible to search for a specific group ID to see all the outages in that group. In addition, on any result that is part of a group you can click on the group ID to be taken straight to the group search.