The world has been, and will continue to be, affected by extreme weather which threatens to interrupt electricity for hours or days.
Reliability and resiliency are key to making sure these interruptions are fewer and shorter.
Reliability: The probability that an item will preform a required function without failure under stated conditions for a period of time.
Source: Donald Benbow, High Benbow, 2013, Reliability Engineer Handbook, ASQ Quality Press
Resiliency: The ability to withstand and reduce the magnitude and /or duration of disruptive events, which includes the capability to anticipate, absorb, adapt to, and/or rapidly recover from such an event.
Source: IEEE PES Industry Technical Support Task Force, 2018, The Definition and Quantification of Resilience, IEEE.
What are some of the ways we can make Canada’s electricity grid more reliable and resilient?
Vegetation management:
- Utilities across North America spend over a billion dollars annually to mitigate tree related outages by trimming back trees, underbrush and vines, but also stump removal, conducting root management
- Customer related outages on the distribution network, due to tree contacts, is still averaging 1 in 5 in Canada.
- Proper vegetation management is not only critical to operations, but also helps mitigate wildfire ignition related to power lines by removing the vegetation or slash from rights-of-way.
Asset management:
- To preserve grid reliability, asset management is necessary to maintain electricity infrastructure.
- Electricity companies have implemented strong asset management programs to ensure all pieces of electricity equipment from generation, transmission and distribution are maintained and operational especially during the increase in extreme weather.
- These assessments can include upgrades in infrastructure and developing outage mitigation techniques including switching from wood to steel hydro poles and adding fire wraps.
Reliability Intelligence Program
Mission: Promote, Maintain and support the electricity sector
Join the program to benchmark in Canada and internationally
Learn more about the Resiliency and Reliability Award
Benefit from one of the most comprehensive historical databases of reliability and outage statistics available to the Canadian electricity industry with over 30 years of records available.
Electricity Canada’s Reliability Intelligence Program initiatives include collecting, storing, and analyzing the reliability and performance of Canada’s power generation, transmission, and distribution systems and equipment. With a focus on improving reliability, addressing operational challenges and reducing commercial risk through shared knowledge, research, and innovation, these long-lasting programs continue to evolve and innovate to meet the needs of a changing industry.
The Reliability Intelligence Program allows utilities to access and purchase relevant data and compare performances against national indicators and those of your peers.
Distribution Reliability Committee (DRC)
The DRC formerly known as the Service Continuity Committee (SCC) provides a mechanism to collect, analyze and report on distribution outage data, processes and functions for members. It is the only source of national assessment of reliability within the Canadian electricity industry for distribution system performance. The Distribution Reliability Committee can accept data from and network with utilities across the globe.
Outputs: SAIDI, SAIFI, CAIDI
Transmission Reliability Committee (TRC)
The Transmission Reliability Committee is responsible for overseeing 2 transmission reliability programs.
Bulk Electricity System (BES)
The only transmission reliability program that examines system delivery points. The BES program provides a mechanism to collect, analyze and report on transmission outage data, processes and functions. Participants gain insights as well as access to a community of practitioners dedicated to improving transmission system performance, through industry accepted measures such as SAIDI, SAIFI and more.
Outputs: T-SAIDI, T-SAIFI, SARI, and more.
Transmission Equipment Reliability Information System (T-ERIS)
T-ERIS, established in 1977, is the only available source of national assessment of reliability within the Canadian electricity industry for transmission equipment, with a focus on improving reliability, addressing operational challenges and reducing commercial risk through shared knowledge, research and innovation. The program collects and analyzes equipment failures and their causes on transmission major components.
Outputs: Frequency, Unavailability, Mean Duration and more.
Generation Reliability Committee (GRC)
The Generation Reliability Committee (formerly known as the Generation Consultative Committee on Outage Statistics) is responsible for overseeing 1 generation reliability program.
Generation Equipment Reliability Information System (G-ERIS)
G-ERIS can accept data from and report on thermal, hydro, wind, nuclear and combustion related fuel sources. This program was original established in 1977. Electricity Canada acts as a data reporting entity for utilities who wish to have their data converted and submitted to NERC, through NERC’s electronic Generation Availability Data System (eGADS) portal. It is the only source of national generation reliability data within the Canadian electricity industry.
Outputs: Availability Factor, Maintenance Outage Factor, and more
Each Committee in the Reliability Intelligence program produces reports for purchase based on the collected data. Check out the full library on our website.