Assisting tools for a new maintenance planning in a power distribution system

This paper describes a framework in which several tools have been integrated in order to help the maintenance planning in a power distribution network. This framework will help to improve the process of decision making in an asset management context of a power distribution company. Two kinds of tools have been developed, one has been oriented to the identification of possible failure risk according to the history of unavailabilities occurred, and another one has been designed for the continuous monitoring and analysis of the life of main components such as power transformers and circuit breakers of a power distribution network. The information supplied by both tools is useful to perform maintenance actions when they are really required by the components monitored according to their health conditions, and to orient the maintenance efforts to the components with certain risk of failure. The final objective of these tools is to apply the resources needed when they are required, optimizing the maintenance costs and keeping a high quality of the service for the clients.