ADER-a software to aid decision makers for distribution network maintenance and renewal

Maintenance and replacement operations for power system equipment aim to improve the reliability and safety. Electricite de France is developing a decision aid interactive system to help the user of an electric network make optimal decisions regarding the maintenance. The authors describe the ADER software program which comprises: a network interactive graphic database management system; an expert system to determine the potential weak-points of a network and their relative seriousness; an analysis of the incidents which occurred during the preceding years; and a maintenance or replacement decision aid based on the above dual analysis, taking into account a number of nationwide or unitwide parameters. This system requires only a light hardware configuration of the compatible PC microcomputer type and can consequently be set up within the most decentralised operation teams