Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Substation Arrangements

Electric utilities traditionally provide a very high degree of reliability to their customers. In these days of ever increasing costs, utilities are trying to determine how much reliability their customers want and how much they are willing to pay. This is an extremely complex question which involves customer value systems as well as good engineering design. To assist the ultimate customer in making that decision, it is essential that utility companies be able to develop cost-effectiveness indices for the various types of service which might satisfy the customer needs. One vital part of any electric system is its substations. The reliability of substations must be high. However, once a reasonable level of reliability is achieved, there must be a means of evaluating the cost of potential changes to the substations to improve their reliability. This study deals primarily with the reliability of the substation based on its configuration. Thus the comparisons are for cost versus reliability of the design (configuration). The FMEA study using the General Electric reliability programs, COMPUTE and FAILURE, can be used to develop reliability or effectiveness indices. These indices combined with cost data result in quantitative cost-effectiveness data that can be used in comparing substation arrangements.