A Step Ahead of Run-to-failure

by Zoilo S. Roldan, Shan H. Chien and Roger J. Lee, Southern California Edison

Reprinted with permission from Transmission & Distribution World, October 2008

Most utilities would agree that a policy of run-to-failure is not a prudent strategy for managing distribution assets in light of its anticipated impact on system reliability and safety. Yet, many utilities have defaulted to this policy by failing to initiate a program of preemptive infrastructure replacement. In some cases, this has resulted in criticism and even unwanted involvement from regulators.

What has prevented many utilities from making the investment that they feel they should in infrastructure replacement has been their inability to clearly predict the payback. Understandably, a “Let’s see what this does” philosophy is hardly a compelling business case for a multimillion-dollar investment. Southern California Edison (SCE; Rosemead, California, U.S.) has developed a method for performing long-term probabilistic forecasts of the reliability of its distribution system as a function of investments in preemptive infrastructure replacement. Simply put, it’s a method to calculate the payback.

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