Asset management: Data and decisions

The ongoing development of an International Standards Organization (ISO) Standard for Asset Management provides a timely opportunity to focus on the elements of asset management in practice at both distribution and transmission substations: what are the risks associated with poor condition and what investment protocols yield the maximum return for regulators, the owners and the customer. The collection and analysis of condition data, synthesized with operational data, has been used to identify anomalous performance and allow for short term reactive planning and longer term strategic planning for asset replacement. This paper looks at the heuristics of data analytics as they have developed, and the need, within the framework of the Smart Grid, to ensure that key substation nodes are asset managed consistently and transparently.