Optimized Line Design in a Deregulated World
Fred A. Brown, P.E.
President and CEO
LineSoft Corporation
12310 East Mirabeau Parkway
Spokane, WA 99216
Rodney W. Griffith, P.E.
Reliability Manager
Entergy
9425 Pinecroft Dr
The Woodlands, TX 77380
Abstract
Utilities face the dilemma of how to increase power delivery and power line reliability without corresponding budget increases. Through optimization, they are able to improve reliability by performing more upgrade projects within existing budgets, and they are able to design and build new power lines more cost-effectively. Optimization results in best-cost designs without sacrificing performance and reliability and without violating standards and code compliance. Using automated design and optimization software, engineers can effectively evaluate the impact of the many factors that affect the cost, performance, and reliability of electric lines. They can quickly and precisely investigate numerous options and identify the best combination for each situation. The automation solution becomes a natural extension of the engineer’s design process, stimulating new ideas and enhancing creativity. Implementation of optimization requires a process change that results from a candid evaluation of practices throughout the business, including an objective comparison of traditional engineering “rules of thumb” with new engineering procedures. While utilities are justifiably reluctant to disrupt established, successful processes, they have a real incentive to incorporate new automated optimization tools that transform the process of power line design. Optimized design processes can save millions of dollars each year while also enhancing reliability.
Conflcting Pressures
Utilities face unprecedented pressures from seemingly incompatible forces:
- Expand Power Delivery. The public and public officials are demanding more power and rapid design and construction of new facilities.
- Meet Financial Goals. The realities of the current business climate impose severe cost constraints on utilities. Utilities have more projects to accomplish than they have money to accomplish them. As a result, utilities are examining every option to reduce costs.
- Increase Reliability. Regulatory bodies are focusing more than ever on reliability. They are setting performance and reliability standards and imposing penalties on utilities that fail to meet those standards. This is spurring utilities to be proactive in ensuring that their designs meet stringent safety and availability criteria.
To meet these challenges, utilities are examining every possible approach to hold down costs, improve reliability, and enhance customer satisfaction. They are seeking innovative approaches to major increases in workload without corresponding budget growth. This requires a frank reexamination of processes and procedures throughout the organization. Successful utilities are employing best practices, addressing these problems through a creative combination of tactics: changing to new material, standardizing parts for economy-of-scale purchasing, enhancing crew efficiency, re-training and cross-training personnel, outsourcing labor, employing consultants, or sharing of resources across the enterprise. This paper focuses on one vital aspect of the solution, the use of new automation tools to maintain or reduce costs without jeopardizing reliability.
The Case For Automated Optimization
New design and optimization tools are available to:
- Complete designs more quickly and reduce the cost of the design process
- Produce the most cost-effective designs
- Ensure that designs result in reliable power lines
Many factors affect the cost and performance of a power line. The designer must recognize which factors can be safely manipulated to reduce costs and which factors cannot or should not be changed. The designer then determines the optimal combination of variables that results in the best-cost design within reliability standards.
Historically, utilities have limited the variables available to the designer and applied a series of rules of thumb to the process. Typically, they ensured reliability through expensive overdesigns. These standardized rules may or may not be based on sound engineering judgment. While standardized materials and practices are more important than ever, economic and reliability pressures require flexibility within standards, and sophisticated new computer systems make that flexibility possible.
Designers are called upon to process an ever-greater number of distribution work orders in a more expeditious manner with fewer resources. They are also required to ensure reliability under pressure of penalties. These productivity requirements have often caused technicians and designers to employ extremely conservative design methods that allow them to process work orders more quickly. Designers go with what they know will work, from experience or rules of thumb, rather than taking the time to evaluate alternatives that may result in more cost-effective designs.
