Risk Based Asset Management Plan of the Exploits River Hydroelectric System

Abstract

The Exploits River Hydroelectric system is composed of a series of water power facilities located in central Newfoundland, Canada, with a total installed capacity of 97 MW. The facilities range in age from “as New” to over 100 years old. These assets were acquired by Nalcor in 2008 and it soon became apparent that the maintenance strategies used by the previous owners had varied considerably from plant to plant depending on the age of the facility and available resources. As such, Nalcor was faced with the challenge of making use of finite resources to develop a comprehensive asset management strategy for each plant so as to ensure the continued satisfactory performance of these varied facilities. The solution adopted involved making use of innovative, state-of-the-art tools and strategies to establish an optimal, risk-informed 20-yr intervention strategy.

At the heart of the process was Hatch’s unique HydroVantage optimization software system. This tool uses a quantitative risk assessment methodology that accounts for both the probability of failure of various key hydropower components and the associated consequences of a forced outage should failure occur. The application of the model allowed for the establishment of the least cost and lowest risk distribution of capital expenditures accounting for annual budgetary constraints and other levelizing criteria.

This paper describes the application of HydroVantage for the various facilities located along the Exploits River.