Increasing Network Resiliency on Ageing Assets

The restructuring of the electricity sector to address current and future challenges forces utilities to operate their existing power networks with increasing flexibility which could stress network aged assets. It is, thus, of paramount importance to develop new operating and maintenance strategies of the critical network assets aiming to increase network resilience to current operating uncertainties and future network expectations in order to achieve optimised network operation.

The purpose of this project is to:
(a) Develop methods for implementing existing health indices (for cable, transformer, overhead lines), utilised from standard Ofgem asset management platform, into overall network ageing-risk assessment practices;
(b) Correlate these indices to failure probabilities that capture component condition history status (e.g., age, failure/unfavourable events, maintenance performed) as well as the loading status of the components within a network wide platform.
(c) Model these probabilities within an operation-planning framework to evaluate the associated risks of asset failures under loading scenarios.

The proposed methodological framework aims to provide operators with additional tools and metrics on optimising operation regimes of key network components to reduce risk-of-failures of aged components but also avoid investment costs of earlier replacement by quantifying the operating risk of individual components and proposing alternative operating practices (under-loading, Demand Response, Smart Operation at emergencies etc.) in addition to the maintenance or replacement.