Canadian experience in the collection of transmission and distribution component unavailability data

Equipment and system performance data are usually collected for two basic reasons. The first, and possibly the most obvious reason, is to assess past performance. The second reason is to provide the required information to estimate future performance. Consistent collection of data is essential as it forms the input to relevant reliability models, techniques and equations. Consistent data are required to continuously monitor the performance of an electric power system and to measure its ability to provide reliable service to its customers. Many utilities have established comprehensive procedures for assessing the performance of their systems. In Canada, these procedures have been formulated through the Canadian Electricity Association (CEA). The CEA is an organization for exchanging information on technical, marketing and management problems of mutual interest to its members. In 1975, CEA adopted a proposal to create a facility for centralized collection, processing and reporting of reliability and outage statistics for electric generation, transmission and distribution equipment. The outage statistics made available through this collection and analysis process provide the requisite data to evaluate the reliability of generation, transmission and distribution systems. This paper briefly illustrates the philosophies adopted by Canadian utilities in the collection of component and system outage data. It also presents a summary of the transmission and distribution component unavailability data in the CEA database