Outsourcing maintenance processes in electricity utilities

Liberalisation of electricity markets has radically altered the business environment of power utilities, introducing significant pressures to perform more efficiently and reduce costs. As a consequence many companies are now outsourcing traditionally in-house services, including plant maintenance, in order to increase shareholders value. In this field it is essential to make the right decisions regarding the organisation of maintenance, keeping in mind that the first responsibility of the utility is to control the process in such a way that the demanded performance is obtained in the most cost-effective way. The paper partly reviews work as prepared by the CIGRE JWG23/39-14 describing business re-engineering models that give insight in the outsourcing processes. The management of maintenance skills, an important item in the outsourcing discussion, is described in the approach of InfraCore, a subsidiary of the NUON utility. This company applies condition based maintenance on distribution and transmission equipment for both third parties and the NUON network, thereby cooperating with the Delft University of Technology and some manufacturers. This cooperation is focused specifically on maintenance knowledge for high voltage and complex medium voltage equipment, and additionally, it resulted in a continuous flow of college trainees in the field of development of diagnostics for condition-based maintenance.