Risk-Based Allocation of Distribution System Maintenance Resources

Asset management is an important activity in present day distribution system planning and operation. Utilities are constantly striving to optimize the use of resources available for maintenance while ensuring system reliability is within satisfactory limits. This paper proposes a method to allocate maintenance resources to various distribution system assets. To determine the effects of maintenance, a predictive reliability assessment tool is developed. This paper describes the model on which this tool is based. The results obtained from reliability assessment can be used along with an optimizer to allocate resources to various maintenance tasks in a distribution system.