Israel Electric Company purchased its DMS system a decade ago. Documents from officials in the utility company document their warnings that the unit will not detect interruptions in electric service on high tension lines at it should were ignored. Nothing was done and then came this year’s major winter storm. The DMS system did not inform utility company officials of interruptions in electric in the high tension lines in some areas as it should, just like the engineers predicted would occur.

As recently as this past February and March officials warned the system will not detect failures in the system as it should. The system would not detect where interruptions in electricity occur. This significantly contributed to delays in restoring power following the storm.

The daily Yisrael Hayom newspaper reports that according to employees of the utility, a worker was dismissed for continuing to insist to his superiors that the system was not operating as it should. Complaints were filed with the utility’s ombudsman and the state comptroller, leading to his dismissal.

Yossi Shenk, an IEC deputy director-general discards the report, stating the system operated as it should, with 95% accuracy in cases of failure. He added that without the system restoration of power would have been delayed considerably.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)