M. SCHWAN * M. ROTH
K.-H. WECK
FGH e.V. GEW RheinEnergie AG
Mannheim Cologne
GERMANY
1 INTRODUCTION
Liberalisation puts the utility companies under a steadily increasing cost pressure. The
experiences in several markets have shown that typical measures taken by the affected
companies to reduce their cost with respect to uncertain earnings in the future include
While especially changing the network structures surely will only have an effect in the long
term, staff reductions and reduced maintenance efforts are expected to affect network
operation also in the short term view.
Also, it is expected that in general all these cost saving measures will have a negative impact
on the quality of supply [1]. As customers and regulating authorities not only focus on the
price of electrical energy, but also on its quality, the question to find the optimal balance
between cost effectiveness and appropriate quality of supply is a key task for network
operators in liberalised markets.
Network planning including both technical and also economic aspects thus requires
detailed and of course quantitative information in this framework. While this is less a problem
for the financial part, the assessment of supply quality is more challenging. An appropriate
tool which gains ever more importance in the field of supply reliability is probabilistic
reliability analysis. The usage of modern probabilistic reliability calculation tools can be
considered to be standard in today's network planning. The indices determined by these
calculations considering e.g. the economic effects of the system's reliability performance
under the given regulatory framework are also used in asset management methods.
* schwan@fgh-ma.de
As the network operators are pushed to introduce cost saving measures as described above,
the concern for the quality of supply requires that the effect of these measures on e.g. supply
reliability should be assessed in appropriate planning studies. In principle, these effects are
very clear: the individual measures will either have an impact on the component reliability,
described by failure rates and outage durations, directly on the system reliability, e.g. by
prolonging switching durations due to staff reductions, or on both aspects.
However, quantifying the influence of such cost saving measures on the reliability indices of
network components and on operational indices, such as fault clearing durations, is a very
difficult task. In a recent analysis [2], the effect of increased component age and loading, of
decreased maintenance activities and of staff reductions on the system supply reliability was
estimated by applying appropriate factors on the input data for the reliability calculation. The
reliability indices for these scenarios are compared to the indices calculated for the base
variant using standard input data for the reliability calculation. The results showed that
considering single cost saving measures one by one only has a limited effect on the system
reliability performance. But in practice, typically all these measures are introduced
simultaneously. Analysing this combined scenario, the effect shows to be very significant, as
Figure 1 presents:
300
Base variant Scenario
Unavailability in min/a '
250
200
150
100
50
0
A B C D E F G H I J
Figure 1 Unavailability for substations A to J of a 110 kV network in the base variant and
in a scenario considering the effect of increased component age and loading, of
decreased maintenance and of staff reductions on a 15 year horizon
In this example, which was calculated for the different substations of a 110 kV network, the
unavailability in the system is rising very sharply considering the effect of the described cost
saving methods. Although the absolute numbers are based on rough estimates, it is obvious
that the effect on supply reliability will be significant. Therefore, the effect of changes in the
network structure and in the network operation should be precisely evaluated and monitored
in order to be able to maintain the required level of quality of supply.
In this paper, first some basic aspects about maintenance and asset management are presented,
as far as they are relevant for the described method. Then, the general idea of a
comprehensive asset management method is described, and special attention is paid to the
interrelation between maintenance strategies and system supply reliability.
2
2 BASIC ASPECTS
In the field of maintenance, there are several different measures which are often characterized
as follows:
Inspection: This planned measure serves to consider the actual condition of network
components.
Servicing: This planned measure is a preventive action taken to preserve the desired
component condition. Measures include e.g. scheduled services or revisions of network
components.
Repair/replacement: This term includes all actions taken to change the component
condition back to the desired state, or at least as close to the desired state as possible.
Repair of course is necessary after a network component was affected by an active failure,
but it might also be necessary because of the effects of operational wear or mere ageing,
which might be detected e.g. by an inspection. If a repair is not (economically) possible,
the component has to be replaced.
Fault elimination: This measure clearly is not part of maintenance. However, it is often
considered in close combination with maintenance measures, as the fault elimination is
often performed by the same organisational units and staff as maintenance.
Whereas inspections, servicing and also the reinvestment of network components can be
planned deterministically in advance, fault elimination and repair/replacement depend on the
occurrence of failures in the network and thus are highly stochastic.
The distinction between deterministic and stochastic aspects is also of importance for the
modelling of different cost segments. For network operators, typically the most significant
cost segments are capital costs, representing the installed components in the network, and the
maintenance costs as the largest part of the operational costs. For the considerations presented
in this paper, capital costs and certain parts of the maintenance costs costs for inspections,
servicing, and reinvestment can be considered to be deterministic. Other parts of the
maintenance costs costs for repair/replacement and the costs for fault elimination are
depending on the stochastic occurrence of failures. Also, the ongoing trend to impose
penalties on the violation of power quality targets set by regulating authorities (e.g. in the UK
[3] or in Norway [4]) will put more importance on stochastic cost components.
Of course, also the costs designated as deterministic are subject to stochastic aspects the
reinvestment costs e.g. are influenced by time or budget overspending which might be caused
by a multitude of reasons. However, the probability distributions describing those stochastic
aspects are typically much narrower than the distributions of the very rarely occurring failure
events.
3
In general, the high relevance of stochastic processes requires the application of suitable risk
management methods [5, 6]. Risk management methods can be used both in the assessment of
the system reliability performance with its respective cost segments [7], and in the assessment
of the scheduled costs for servicing and reinvestment [8].
With the background described above, trying to solve the key question of how to find the
optimal balance between cost effectiveness and appropriate quality of supply has to be
supported by comprehensive asset management methods. These methods have to consider
both economical and technical aspects, and have to represent the stochastic nature of certain
cost components. The principle of a comprehensive asset management approach is described
by the schematic diagram shown in Figure 2:
Prognosis
Strategies
Network and Inspections
component data
Component - Servicing
e.g. component age,
reliability data maintenace history Reinvestment
Fault elimination
Reliability calculation.
Calculation
Risk analysis
Analysis
and
optimisation
The bases for this method are of course network and component data, like e.g. the number,
age structure and maintenance history of network components, together with data on the
current component reliability, eventually considering the current component condition.
Together with a model of the chosen strategies for inspections, servicing, reinvestment and
fault elimination e.g. describing the time interval for inspections, or the number of personnel
available for fault elimination and repair, which determines the duration of fault elimination
and of component outages the different cost components for the actual situation can be
calculated for a given time period.
For the deterministic costs this calculation is comparatively easy. For the stochastic costs
depending on the occurrence of failure events, a probabilistic reliability calculation of the
actual situation, together with appropriate risk management methods, is required to derive
costs for fault elimination, repair and for penalties or compensations according to the given
regulation.
4
In the final analysis of the actual situation, the separate components are evaluated and the
overall effectiveness of the scenario under consideration is assessed. Changes in the chosen
strategies may be derived in order to investigate the effect of different strategies and in order
to achieve preset target values. With the adapted modelling of the maintenance strategies, a
fictive situation is calculated in the next step.
The modules required for this comprehensive asset management method also considering the
system's reliability performance depending on the strategies for inspections, servicing,
reinvestment and fault elimination are all available today, except for one key point. It is quite
obvious that the chosen strategies do have an effect on the reliability of the network
components. While the qualitative interrelations are described easily the less maintenance
activities are performed and the older the component, the worse is the component reliability
it is typically not at all possible to describe these interrelations in a detailed and quantitative
way. Especially the ability to quantify the effects is of course a prerequisite for any
calculation.
So, the prognosis of the component reliability indices depending on the age of the component
and on the chosen strategies is of crucial importance for asset management. But for most
components appropriate models are not available. Even if rough models are known, gathering
the required input data for these models is critical in their practical application.
4.1 Modelling
As described above, the effect of the chosen strategies for servicing, reinvestment and fault
elimination on the component reliability has to be modelled in a suitable way. Basically, this
means to quantitatively describe the effect of ageing as the age of the network components
is determined by the chosen reinvestment strategy and the effect of maintenance activities
on the course of the component failure rate over time (Figure 3).
[1/a]
Without
maintenance
With maintenance
t [a]
Figure 3 Component failure rate over time, with or without maintenance activities
For the modelling, two different approaches are possible. With the first approach, the
component reliability is just considered as a property depending on the described aspects. By
analysing suitable statistics, a quantitative interrelation is described from the documented
experience. The physical interrelations themselves are kept as a black box.
5
With the second approach, the physical interrelations themselves are modelled explicitly. This
requires first to identify a physical property of the component being relevant for the
functioning of the component in the system and being influenced by the ageing process under
consideration. Second, from historical experience or laboratory tests, the effect of ageing and
of maintenance activities on this physical property has to be determined. Also, the operational
stress relating to this physical property that the component is exposed to in the system has to
be determined. Combining these quantitative descriptions, the resulting failure rate of the
component with respect to the ageing process under consideration can be calculated.
The modelling of individual failure processes is demonstrated for the example of VPE cables
affected by water trees [9, 10]. As said before, usually detailed models and statistical data are
not available in the required level of detail in order to derive such models. However, some of
the first VPE cables manufactured in the 1970ies proved to suffer from water-trees, rapidly
deteriorating the insulation capability of the cables. As this caused massive problems in
network operation, very detailed statistics and analyses were performed on this special case.
The physical property describing the insulation capability is the disruptive discharge voltage
of the VPE insulation, and the corresponding operational stress is the voltage stress.
Experience from the field and from laboratory experiments showed that both the disruptive
discharge voltage and the voltage stress depend on the operating conditions, i.e. normal
operation, operation under earth fault conditions and very rarely the occurrence of
transient overvoltages. The course of the disruptive discharge voltage over the operation
duration and the distribution of voltage stresses are shown in Figure 4.
1000 100
Disruptive discharge voltage in kV .
Switching overvoltages
10
Frequency per year
1
100 Earth fault
overvoltages
0,1
Lightning overvoltages
0,01
10
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 0,001
Operation duration in years 0 50 100 150
Continuous voltage Transient overvoltage Voltage stress in kV
Earth fault overvoltage Power frequency voltages Transient overvoltages
a) b)
Figure 4 a) Disruptive discharge voltage of certain VPE cables
b) Typical voltage stresses in a 20 kV distribution network
Combining the description of the disruptive discharge voltage and the corresponding
operational voltage stress, the resulting failure rate of the VPE cable can be derived. The
result is shown for certain VPE cables manufactured in 1975 in Figure 5 a. This figure both
presents the results of the theoretical modelling as described above, and of the operational
experience documented in a specific cable statistic which was introduced to cover this topic. It
can be seen that the results fit very well. Also, the effect of the increasing failure rates is
6
shown in Figure 5 b. Here, reliability indices for a distribution network were calculated,
assuming a failure rate for cables in this network according to Figure 5 a. It can be clearly
seen that for a certain period, the systems reliability performance is not affected. However, as
soon as the effect of cable ageing becomes visible, the decrease of reliability is very sharp.
20 900
0,6
0 0
0
-6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10
0 3 6 9 12 15
Cable age in years Time in years
a) b)
Figure 5 a) Failure rate of certain VPE cables depending on the cable age
b) Corresponding reliability indices for a distribution network
Currently, the recording scheme for the statistic on component failures is defined and the data
collection has started. The final results of this project are expected to be available in 2005.
5 CONCLUSION
Asset management methods are essential tools for network operators acting in the conflict
area between cost saving programs on one side and power quality requirements on the other
side. The principle of a comprehensive asset management method, considering both
deterministic cost components, like costs for preventive maintenance, and stochastic cost
components, like costs for fault elimination or penalties depending on the reliability
performance of the system, is described. The modules required for this method are all
7
available today and are widely used by network operators. The only exception is the prognosis
of the expected component reliability.
This prognosis is a key point of such methods, as the strategies for preventive maintenance,
reinvestment and network operation clearly have an impact on component reliability and on
the reliability performance of the system. Today, these effects cannot be described
systematically and quantitatively for most network components, as suitable models and
corresponding parameters are not available. The theoretical approach for deriving such
models is described in this paper, and an example for VPE cables of certain production years
is presented.
Finally, a research project is presented which is covering this topic. It is expected that the
results of this project will greatly increase the insight and the modelling capabilities for
ageing processes of network components, which is of high relevance for asset management
methods.
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p. 7-13)
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