The Availability Improvement Methodology (AIM) for Evaluating Power Plant Improvement Projects

The Availability Improvement Methodology (AIM) presented in this paper describes a method for calculating the increase in the power plant equivalent availability factor resulting from a proposed improvement project. AIM uses the recently developed IEEE definitions, along with other reliability parameters for establishing unit availability and performance. Additionally, AIM calculations are based primarily on data being collected for the Generating Availability Data System (GADS) of the National Electric Reliability Council. Many utilities are presently collecting equipment outage data on the GADS Performance and Event Report Forms. This data, if properly developed, is sufficient for performing AIM calculations.