Study on Advanced Maintenance Strategies and Asset Management for Substation Equipment in Japan: Analysis of the Degradation Mechanisms and Investigation of Maintenance Strategy

Study on the advanced maintenance strategies and the asset management of substation equipment is enthusiastically taken in place in Japan by the engineers from utilities and manufactures. This work is a part of the ETRA (Electric Technology Research Association) in Japan, where most of the Japanese utilities and manufactures cooperate with each other to address various issues that need to be improved or overcome for upwards of 80 years. The following working groups are organized in this study; “Investigation of the transition of substation equipment quantity, trend analysis of failures”, “Analysis of the degradation mechanisms of substation equipment and investigation of maintenance strategy”, “Investigation of recent technologies for advance maintenance strategies” and “Survey and research on asset management methods for strategic investment judgments”. In this paper, “Analysis of the degradation mechanisms of substation equipment and investigation of maintenance strategy” are reported. In the first step, substation equipment is broken down into the component level (e.g., circuit breaker) and then the process of the deterioration against each component have been organized. Then, the measures of the conservation against each component have been put it together. Next, information of the failures in substation equipment and the research that investigated the deterioration of the substation equipment have been collected. Based on the results of these investigations, we summarized the cause of the failure and the repair method using the redesigned parts. Finally, the determinants of lifetime for Tr and GIS / GCB, the main equipment of substations, and how utilities can use the equipment for a long time are summarized through a questionnaire to Japanese utilities and manufactures. To understand the lifetime of equipment can be an effective means to formulate a renewal plan taking into account the life cycle costs