Evaluating capacity probability distributions of aged power equipment: Method and example

This paper presents a method to evaluate capacity probability distributions of aged power equipment. The method can be applied to any equipment with multiple components. Both repairable and aging (end-of-life) failure modes are modeled. The capacity probability distributions vary over time since the unavailability due to component aging failures increases with the age. The probability distributions are useful information for equipment performance assessment and also can be used as a multiple capacity level model of equipment in transmission reliability evaluation. The bi-polar HVDC link at BC Transmission Corporation is used as an example to demonstrate the application.