The Effects of Availability Upon Installed Reserve Requirements

The importance and effects of reliable forced outage and availability data upon installed capacity reserve requirements for an electric utility system are discussed. The effects are discussed in relationship to a utility system´s ability to maintain equipment and to provide capacity to replace capacity which may be forced out of service due to emergency failures. No attempt is made to treat the subjects of load forecasting, spinning reserve, and tieline regulation. A brief resume of the development and usage of probability methods applied to the determination of forced outage requirements is included.