Determining substation equipment life expectancy 5

[rockman7892]

Does anyone know of a good reference that exists for determining standard life expectancies of different type of substation equipment (IE breakers, transformers…..)

Also looking for a reference to estimate capital cost of such equipment to determine capital cost inclusive of purchase price, install, parts replacement and maintenance.

I appreciate any references anyone may be aware of or had referenced similarly in the past

 

[xnuke]

Try TM 5-698-5 Survey of Reliability and Availability Information For Power Distribution, Power Generation, and Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning (HVAC) Components For Commercial, Industrial, and Utility Installations for your first question. There are also some IEEE standards in the 3006 series as well as an IEEE document with historical data (some of which is the same as the data in the Army manual).

I'd look to RSMeans Electrical Costs for cost information.

xnuke
"Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life." Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[cranky108]

Look at what your accounting department is using for deprecation. That is an indicator of how long they expect it to last.
That said they usually won't go past 30 years. They also have bad estimates, many times.

 

[Palletjack]

We recently retired a station transformer. It was 1943 model.
Breaker and regulator changes, with good maintenance on switchgear, motor operators, and interrupters should last well beyond 30 years.

 

[rockman7892]

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm looking to develop or identify the equipment life expectancy based off of industry standards and won't be able to reference accounting or specific user experiences.

What I was hoping to find was a good resource or resources that give industry standards on equipment lifespans. Alot of the references I've seen with IEEE etc... tend to give failure rates related to maintenance or replacement parts but don't really give an overall useful life assuming proper maintenance activities.

 

[Gr8blu]

rockman: For the kind of data you're looking for, the industry standards are not going to give you what you want - nor are the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). This is because there is a "design" life expectancy, and then there is the "real world" life expectancy. Most of the time, the OEM doesn't get to hear back when their equipment fails, or why it fails, or even what the user was doing with it at the time. However, the repair facilities that are tasked with either repairing or maintaining the equipment should have a reasonable idea about how long a specific type of equipment may last - and even whether the period varies from one manufacturer to another. This is because they DO see the failures (and what it was doing at the time) - and often keep records so the next time they see a certain failure mode or device they can fix it faster or more effectively.

The reason the standards are not likely to help you is that they are - almost exclusively - written as "performance" standards, and - as they are developed as a consensus between users, manufacturers, government, and academia - default to the lowest common denominator (or the "minimum acceptable" condition). Finally, a large proportion of standards (such as IEEE and IEC) seldom contain the word "shall" - instead, they use "should" or "may". What they means is that most things are not really requirements - at best, they are strong suggestions, based on current science and accumulated practical experience.

The only "standard" that I know of that might come close to what you're seeking is the Naval Surface Warfare Center (Carderock Division) "Handbook of Reliability Prediction Procedures for Mechanical Equipment".

Converting energy to motion for more than half a century

 

[cranky108]

Maybe, but with our company, we don't repair most equipment. We scrap it, or sell it used.

 

[Amit Bajpayee]

@Gr8blu Thank you for this information.

https://agnisolar.com/

 

[RRaghunath]

I think Accounts department knows better on Design Life Expectancy of plant Equipment.
This data should be available in Insurance company documents and Asset depreciation calculation standards.
I have seen Shell (O&G major) Design standard mentioning that the equipment shall be designed for 25 years, but there is no way to verify in reality. Some parts of the equipment like insulation undergo accelerated life test. That's it.

 

[oldrunner]

For transformers, it's usually the life of the insulation: whether it's TUK or Nomex. Also it depends how the transformer is used such as operating above it's name plate temperature. Another variable is whether the coil windings have a hydraulic mechanism to keep the coil/spacer stacks compressed for stability rather than let a loose winding scenario eventually develop. It sometimes appears that some users let their transformer run to failure and failure can be a fire/explosion rather that the unit just stopping.It can be somewhat difficult to determine the end of life of a transformer.Palletjack's transformer is a good anomaly. IEEE 693 is 30 years. TEPCO stated 75 years somewhere. I saw a insurance report some years ago stating 18.6! IEEE 693 recommends that a engineer certify that a transformer will continue to operate during and after a earthquake. Maybe brand new and for about 5 to 10 years, but at 25 years and an unknown amount of insulation deterioration, maybe not.