Field data management: The value and challenge of asset health insight

BY PAUL BARNETT, JOHN STEWART, Tennessee Valley Authority & PAT BROWN, Electric Power Research Institute

Intelligent management and operation of assets is of major importance to electric utilities. In an era where assets are being kept in service beyond their originally anticipated life spans, where replacement dollars are tight and where reliability expectations are increasing, insight into the health of utility assets is critical to intelligent decision-making.

ASSET HEALTH INSIGHT
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), similar to many transmission utilities across North America, is focusing on improving its understanding of the condition of its assets to allow it to make better repair, replace, and monitor determinations, to prioritize maintenance activities more effectively, to operate its transmission system more intelligently, and to reduce its operating costs over the long run.

Similar to other utilities, TVA’s ability to evaluate the condition of its assets accurately and continuously is hampered by the difficulty of assembling the data pertinent to determining asset health.