Untapped T&D measurement data could make the difference on reliability.
David Kreiss is president of Kreiss Johnson Technologies, a developer of substation data acquisition and analysis software for the utility industry based in San Diego, Calif.
J.D. Hammerly is regional vice president for Areva T&D, which is headquartered in Paris. Hammerly works out of the company's Seattle office.
Utility executives rely on sound decision making to determine how resources should be allocated, to ensure that systems operate with a maximum efficiency and reliability at the lowest cost. These executives walk the fine line of deciding where money should be spent to minimize the likelihood of an expensive catastrophe while also achieving a targeted level of reliability. These issues include:
- Planning for capital transmission and distribution expenditures, especially breakers, transformers, circuits, and substations;
- Projecting maintenance ex-penses; in particular, de-ciding when equipment should be repaired, upgraded, or switched out with other components; and
- Performing long-term planning for power systems that are typically operating above capacity.
While utility executives must take into account the interaction and dynamics of connected RTOs and ISOs, their decisions generally are dictated by certain underlying beliefs of the current condition of their transmission and distribution (T&D) system components and their failure rates. The problem is that these condition assessments usually are based on historical trends of failure rates and maintenance expenses that are assumed will continue in the future.