By optimizing facility management through collaborative creation with customers, aims for stable provision of electric power
Hitachi has developed new technology supporting the formulation of facility maintenance plans, based on methodology called Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM),*1 to enable efficient lifetime extension and upgrading of power transmission and distribution facilities while maintaining their reliability. Even when insufficient data is available for reliability analysis, the new technology is able to help quantify future failure risk by leveraging the accumulated experience and knowledge of engineers. Hitachi plans to promote optimization of facility management through collaborative creation (co-creation) with customers in Japan and overseas who are considering maintenance plans for their power transmission and distribution networks, thereby contributing to the stable provision of electric power (Figure 1).
Figure 1: RCM promotion through collaborative creation with customers and equipment manufacturers in the power transmission and distribution business domain
(Enables development of maintenance programs achieving improved equipment reliability and cost targets through cooperation between operators and manufacturers)
The need for providing and maintaining power transmission and distribution networks has become more urgent with the increase in AI-driven data center construction and renewable energy use. This trend has made it necessary for companies involved in the power transmission and distribution business to carry out efficient lifetime extension and upgrading of their facilities while maintaining reliability. Although RCM is a standard method for evaluating equipment failure risk, the time and labor demands, including for data gathering, are seen as excessive.
Hitachi has drawn on its expertise built up over many years of equipment production and operation support to develop an RCM method designed specifically for use with power transmission and distribution facilities. Even in the case of equipment for which the amount of digital data necessary for reliability analysis is lacking, through collaborative creation with customers based on the RCM guidelines, and leveraging the experience and knowledge of engineers, the developed method can perform optimization of equipment, maintenance, and IoT, while quantifying future failure risk.
As a specific example, this method was used and evaluated in power substation equipment that had been in service for many years. The effectiveness of this method was confirmed in quantitatively comparing the failure risk between the existing maintenance plan and equipment upgrading, such as by IoT retrofitting.*2 The new technology will make possible efficient maintenance and upgrades of power transmission and distribution facilities while maintaining their reliability, and will also help in meeting the demands of the revenue cap system*3 recently introduced in Japan.
This technology was announced in part at the CIGRE (Conseil International des Grands Réseaux Électriques = International Council on Large Electric Systems) Paris Session 2024 held August 25–30, 2024.
*1 Reliability Centered Maintenance: A methodology for devising effective maintenance strategies to maximize the reliability of equipment and systems. It originally came into being for maintenance of airplanes, for which reliability is of the utmost importance.
*2 Installing the latest equipment and monitoring systems in existing facilities to upgrade their functions and performance.
*3 A new wheeling charge system introduced in Japan in fiscal 2023 aimed at realizing both the necessary investments in facilities and cost efficiency.
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