Tdworld 2115 Bmsurvey
Tdworld 2115 Bmsurvey
Tdworld 2115 Bmsurvey
Tdworld 2115 Bmsurvey
Tdworld 2115 Bmsurvey

Aging Assets a Problem for T&D Professionals

Aug. 11, 2014
T&D World magazine conducted the expansive research, collecting data from June 5-9, 2014, and 685 respondents representing T&D managers and engineers working in construction, maintenance, operations and engineering.

A majority of T&D professionals reported that their companies are addressing aging assets (65%), followed by the use of smart meters feeding outage management systems (42%), according to a new survey sponsored by Burns & McDonnell.

T&D World magazine conducted the expansive research, collecting data from June 5-9, 2014, and 685 respondents representing T&D managers and engineers working in construction, maintenance, operations and engineering. The report looks at all the of the main issues professionals are facing including aging assets, equipment and technology investments, upgrading capacity vs. lessening susceptibility, power delivery system redesign plans.

Some interesting statistics:

  • The majority are investing in diagnostic equipment (66%), while 52% are installing outage management systems. Far fewer are looking at self-healing circuits (21%).
  • A third of respondents (34%) report their utilities are planning to redesign their power delivery systems within the next two years to accommodated distributed generation, including 16% who plan to do so within the next year.
  • Respondent attitudes are divided with regard to whether or not it would make sense for their utilities to support the development of hybrid microgrids in order to take congestion off the utility grid while meeting local interests in being more independent: 28% believe this would make sense for their utilities, 35% believe it may, and 37% are doubtful.
  • Just under a third of respondents (29%) expressed a healthy interest in learning more about compliance with FERC Order 1000, which enables companies to compete against incumbent utilities and bid to deliver turnkey transmission to meet ISO requested transmission. Another 31% are moderately interested.

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