Quality of service approach for risk management and cost optimisation for electricity networks

Commercial and competitive pressures continue to reduce the inherent safety margins that traditional management decision making has depended on to assure high performance network operation. This has increased operational risk management?, yet expenditure is expected to continue to be reduced, at a time when the regulator is demanding improved performance. Traditional methods of budgeting, prioritising projects, and deciding on the timing and extent of additional maintenance work are based on insufficient information for informed decisions — and the consequences of failure can be catastrophic. An approach for making CAPEX/OPEX decisions based on the impact on the expected quality of service provided, proved to be a good tool for performance improvement with management risk control in the longer term with confidence while minimising cost in the short term.