Indiana Municipal Electric Association to Implement Veracity Connect

Indiana Municipal Electric Association (IMEA) Selects Veracity Connect for Mutual Aid Management Pilot
February 24, 2015 – Veracity Asset Management Group, the category-defining Mutual Aid & Critical Spares Management solution provider, announced today that the Indiana Municipal Electric Association (IMEA) will conduct a pilot project utilizing Veracity Connect to automate and manage Mutual Aid for its members.

The Veracity Connect solution enables utilities of all sizes to proactively prepare for and collaborate during disasters. Veracity Connect was developed with input from a number of different public power utilities, State Associations and Joint Action Agencies.

Indiana is no stranger to weather extremes from sub-zero temperatures, ice and snow in the winter to heavy rains, high winds and tornados in the spring and summer. When severe weather is enroute or a storm strikes, the IMEA has a system in place to communicate, coordinate and get help to where it’s needed most.

The implementation of Veracity Connect will enhance the processes the IMEA currently uses and will provide IMEA Regional Coordinators the tools they need to ensure an effective, efficient, and expeditious coordination effort while maintaining control and focusing on what’s important – getting the lights back on.

The IMEA knows well the value of having an efficient, coordinated response effort for outages large and small. In fact, its more-than-30-year program has long been considered one of the country’s best. It has proven to be an effective protocol to provide trained responders for the quick and safe response to the call for help at a low cost, and at times, no cost.

About the Indiana Municipal Electric Association (IMEA)
The IMEA has operated as the statewide service association representing the issues and concerns of municipally owned and operated electric utilities while promoting the benefits and public power business model since 1941. IMEA serves the unified interests of Indiana’s 72 public power communities as well as a forum for electric utilities to pool resources for effective leadership, representation, advocacy, education, training and protection.
The majority of Indiana’s public power systems have celebrated their centennial. More than 500,000 Hoosiers own, control and are serviced by their municipal electric utility.

About Veracity Asset Management Group
Veracity is a consulting, services and software firm focused on providing unique solutions to Utilities and Utility Associations across North America. Veracity has developed Veracity Connect, a proprietary technology that allows member Utilities and Associations to access and share information related to mutual aid management and critical spare equipment.

January Energy Grid Roundup: Everything You Need to Know

Top 12 Grid Optimization Articles of 2014 – Grid improvements and distributed grid are what utilities focus on.

10 energy numbers to remember from 2014 – Renewables, iPhone 6,  pollution, World Cup and efficiency.

Transmission & Distribution World’s 15 Most Notable Articles of 2014 – Distributed energy sources & renewables are this year’s key words.

Nuclear energy sector saw some steady progress in 2014 – India &  Russia are top clients for new nuclear plants

Blast from the past: 2014! – The 12 blog posts that you cannot miss about utilities and asset management

12 Utility Trends For 2015

What was the biggest power breakthrough in the last 100 years? AC-DC & energy storage have changed the grid.

Extreme Weather

Weather Forecasts North America 2015 – Temperatures above normal…which means more snow than usual! Turn your mutual aid agreement on with Veracity http://ow.ly/EucON

A snow storm for lunch! Maximize your mutual aid efforts with Veracity. Emergency response plans are essential to cope with future disasters. http://ow.ly/i/7PPS3

How is the weather like in your area? Are you a utility? Capitalize on mutual aid with Veracity Connect

PJM Seeks To Delay Idling Of 2,500 MW As Hedge Against Winter Shortages – Utilities get ready for the worst of winter.

Managing Restoration of Critical Utility Infrastructure – Our mutual aid and critical spares management platform helps you find critical equipment when the worst occurs: http://ow.ly/GyJB9

Storm Hardening the Grid – Are you ready? We can help you with mutual aid agreements http://ow.ly/E8juF

Cloud-Based Approaches to Disaster Recovery – VeracityConnect helps utilities boost mutual aid:  http://ow.ly/GS8Pe

Beyond NERC: best practices for worst-case scenarios – “Plan for recovery as well as prevention.” This is why we offer utilities Veracity Connect, a platform to source critical spares like transformers in North America http://ow.ly/Ccjlh

U.S. Power Reliability: Are We Kidding Ourselves? – “The average U.S. customer loses power for 214 minutes per year. That compares to 70 in the United Kingdom, 53 in France, 29 in the Netherlands, 6 in Japan, and 2 minutes per year in Singapore.” – IEEE Spectrum

Nuclear

England’s Hinkley Point C nuclear plant to break ground in 2015 – Two Chinese corporations have shares in the project.

Kudankulam nuclear units to be up and running by 2021 – India’s new plant will have a capacity of 1,000 MW.

Areva clinches control systems deal for China nuclear reactors – The French company will provide instrumentation and control systems for two new reactors. The six reactors will start operating in 2018.

Nuclear reactors halted following deadly chemical leak – 3 workers died at the Shingori-3 reactor site, operated by Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co.

Nuclear power key to UAE’s sustainability – A nuclear plant is the answer to limited power generation.

Nuclear plant leaked 2,000 gallons of oil into Lake Michigan for months – The leak is now fixed, not the damages.

Vermont Just Lost 70% of Its Power From This Nuclear Shutdown

Nine local companies place bid for $1 billion hydraulic systems of Akkuyu nuke plant  – Turkey’s first nuclear plant on the coastal province of Mersin.

Coal

U.S. Coal Losing Power Business Dominance but Not Going Away – In 2022, 230 GW will still be generated through coal.

National Grid Corporation of the Philippines to invest P2.22B in Mindanao coal plant’s transmission facility The plant will consists of four 135-MW units and will be operational by 2017-2018.

Electric Cooperatives

NRECA Welcomes New Grid Protections for G&Ts – “NERC’s new Physical Security Grid Reliability Standards provide a framework for co-ops and other utilities to assess physical system risks, identify critical facilities, evaluate physical threats and vulnerabilities and develop an approach to address risks to the nation’s most critical substations and associated control centers,” said NRECA CEO Jo Ann Emerson.

Old FedEx Truck Now Helps Coop Restore Power – The truck now delivers parts to crews in the field.

Connect with other co-ops, OEMs & leading transformer brokers to leverage a pool of critical spares

Regulations

EPA releases coal ash rule – The Environmental Protection Agency will consider coal ash as household waste.

Utility Spending on Energy Efficiency Soars as Supportive State Policies Are Expanded

Utility regulators authorize Xcel generating projects – The company will be able to build more than $500 million in new generating units.

EPA’s rule rigged against nuclear – Climate change requires quick action from regulators and utilities.

The biggest threat to demand response? It may not be the Order 745 ruling.

EPA defines classification of fly ash from coal fired power plants – Can environment and coal coexist?

Decommissioning

Decommissioning Projects – Why it takes so long & costs so much

Westinghouse, Bechtel Announce Alliance for U.S. Decontamination, Decommissioning of nuclear plants

Exelon: Company dismantling Zion nuclear plant is running out of money – Around 40% of the costs are “in shipping and disposing of low level radioactive waste”. $800 million may not be enough for decommissioning.

Fitch Ratings Warns on Early Nuclear Retirements – Is reducing the nuclear percentage in energy sources a bad thing?

Global nuclear decommissioning cost seen underestimated, may spiral – Several companies admit that their decommissioning funds are not sufficient.

 

Renewables

Utilities Should Avoid Over-Investing When Integrating Renewable Energy into their Grid – Renewables require a solid investment plan.

Report: Distributed-Renewables Disruption Will Reduce Utility Revenues By Up To $123 Billion A Year By 2025 – Could utilities change the game?

A huge floating solar farm will be built on a reservoir in Japan – Would solar be the new offshore renewable source of energy?

EDF confirms 400 MW Brazil hydro acquisition – EDF has secured 51% stake of the Sinop hydroelectric project.

2015 OUTLOOK: Brazil gets serious about solar – Climate changes push the grid to its limits, with a need for renewables more than ever.

India Committed to World’s Largest Solar Park – NTPC Limited’s plant has a capacity of 750 MW.

Utility of the future – solar, storage, EVs and micro-grids – Consumers become prosumers and have more influential power than you think.

Grid Improvement

BC Hydro Delivers Power and Progress – The company led the Northwest Transmission 213-mile line project carried out in only 2 years, creating 5,500 direct jobs.

Transmission Line Connects Minnesota and Wisconsin – Building the transmission line involves construction on an island. Construction crews commute by barges and boats.

ITC Great Plains Energizes V-Plan Transmission Line, Substations in Kansas

Kenya Power to invest US$95.9m in 36 new substations around the country – The goal is to improve the grid’s reliability. A total of 5,000 MW of power will be added to the grid by 2017.

How utilities can plan for the future of transmission and distributed generation –  Flexibility and cost-justifiability are the new transmission & distribution keywords.

Greater demands on outage management systems mean more investment coming

FirstEnergy completes $6 million transmission project – The project aims at meeting the demand growth driven by the shale gas industry across its Ohio Edison service area.

$356 bn needed for Arab power projects: study – The projects focus on capacity expansion & distribution network.

NY offers $14.5 million for power plant upgrades – The money comes from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative “a carbon cap-and-trade program that charges fossil fuel-burning power plants for the carbon dioxide they emit.”

Eaton wins contract from Green Mountain Power to upgrade automate electrical system in Vermont

Grid Equipment

Equipment Criticality: What makes your industrial equipment essential to your company

NYPA approves budget that includes $24.5M for transformer and circuit breaker replacement in Massena – Six 765-kV transformers will be installed, each weighing 200 tons.

Transformers: An Essential Link of the Electrical Grid

Smart Grid

Great Progress on Smart Grid and Smart City Predictions for 2020

How to make your smart grid even smarter – Storage, microgrids and software are utilities’ new key tools.

Smart Cities Charlotte May 12 – 13, 2015 – Smart Cities is an Energy Central event designed to educate utilities, solution providers and communities on the steps and paths to collaboratively develop Smart Cities in their region. #SmartCities2015

Company News

We launched our large surplus online catalogue featuring like-new assets from utilities

Veracity Connect: a platform to automate mutual aid – Veracity Connect allows members to work together to strengthen mutual aid and to be better prepared for infrastructure failure and extreme weather events.

Access reports from the U.S. utility industry – Electric Infrastructure, Asset Management and Grid Security

Recovering value from a plant decommissioning? Learn more about some of the projects we carried out.

Are you a Google+ user? Let us add you to our circle!

Here is a new way for utilities to source critical spares: Veracity Connect & LinkedIn. Curious about it? We will be glad to answer all your questions. Contact us at info@veracityamg.com or 1-866-694-1252.

Are you a utility company? Have instant access to mutual aid contact & resources via the online platform Veracity Connect

What we do for our Clients: Critical Spares Management & Investment Recovery

Are you a utility? Have instant access to mutual aid contact & resources with Veracity Connect

Are you a utility company? Maximize the value of surplus equipment with Veracity’s investment recovery.

Join the Investment Recovery Canada LinkedIn group and find opportunities for your Canadian company.

Aging grid assets? Know when to replace them http://ow.ly/GAQvw Get help from Veracity Connect.

Are you paying to get rid of idle assets? Turn them into money back with our Investment Recovery Team.

Get a better idea of our investment recovery & critical spares management services: http://www.veracityamg.com

Through Veracity Connect, connect with other member co-ops, OEMs and leading transformer brokers to leverage a pool of available critical spares: http://ow.ly/BonlR #utilities #electriccooperatives #criticalspares http://ow.ly/i/7jlps

Source assets in no time & save on costs with Veracity Connect: http://ow.ly/Hj4dB #utilities #criticalspares http://ow.ly/i/7jkZw

#Transformers, Mutual Aid & Asset Disposition are components of Veracity Connect: http://ow.ly/Hj95a http://ow.ly/i/7Invt #utilities

Subscribe to our newsletter: Critical Spares Mgmt & Investment Recovery for #Utilities http://eepurl.com/LVtY1 http://ow.ly/i/73Jj2

Finding critical spares was a manual, drawn out & frustrating experience. Not anymore with Veracity Connect! http://ow.ly/Hj6GF

Binder, spreadsheet… as a #utility company, you deserve better to source critical spares: Try Veracity Connect: http://ow.ly/Hj7g6

Are you a #Utility company? Leverage a pool of Critical Spares through the Power of Collaboration – Veracity Connect http://ow.ly/HWz0I

Company Blog

Supply Chain & ISO 14000: Connecting Sustainability and Investment Recovery

Debunking 5 myths of Purchasing Reconditioned Electrical Assets – Infographic

7 ways to dispose of your surplus assets!

Collaborative economy & idle asset – Your surplus equipment can serve your sustainability

Webinars for Utilities: A la carte! We help utilities with mutual aid & asset mgmt services: www.veracityamg.com

Critical Spares Infographic – Do you have critical spares you need to turn into money back to the bottom line? http://ow.ly/i/5VuQV

ISO 55000: Meet Your (New) Friend SAM

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Learn more about our Mutual Aid & Critical Spares Management Solution for Utilities: Make electrical equipment procurement easy and efficient. Locate a matching power transformer before a failure occurs!

Stay updated through our social media platforms and our website:

Subscribe to our Veracity’s monthly newsletter: Critical Spares Management & Investment Recovery for Utilities

ISO 55000: Meet Your (New) Friend SAM

Published in 2014 by the International Standards Organization (ISO), ISO 55000 focuses on asset management of any types of assets, and especially physical assets.

Asset Management has become essential for companies to improve their organization management and financial health. According to John Woodhouse, UK Principal Export, ISO PC251 Committee (developing ISO 55000), an asset management system is a “framework of control, directional alignment, cross-disciplinary collaboration, optimization and continual improvement”. It is not a piece of software, but a set of guidelines that will help you build an efficient asset management system.

This standard “specifies the requirements for the establishment, implementation, maintenance and improvement of a management system for asset management” (SAM), and is referred as an “asset management system”. It outlines the approach an organization should adopt to implement a SAM, step by step and taking into account  factors across departments, including the life cycle of assets.

The ISO 55000 Standards for Asset Management are developed in 3 documents: ISO 55000, ISO 55001, ISO 55002. This is the first international standard for asset management.

It is intended for people involved in asset management systems (establishment, implementation, maintenance and its improvement) and activities, and people in charge of assessing the systems.

Scope

SAM has 4 components:

1. Asset management policy
2. Asset management objectives
3. Strategic asset management plan and portfolios
4. Asset management plans

ISO 55000 focuses on the following factors:

• Human Resources:
  • Structure and responsibilities
  • Leadership
  • Skills
  • Cross-disciplinary teamwork
• Risk Management:
  • Asset criticality and risk level
  • Asset health
  • Risk-based decision-making
• Information:
  • Trustworthy asset management record
  • Information management systems
  • Work & resource planning and management systems

*PDCA : Plan, do, check, act

Have you implement a system of asset management? Are you thinking of it? Share your experience with us!

 Go further:

If you would like to implement and get certified in ISO55000, find information here.

Visit the Institute of Asset Management website: www.theiam.org

Canadian Asset Managers Network: http://www.cnam.ca/

Sources:

http://www.iso.org/iso/home/news_index/news_archive/news.htm?refid=Ref1813

https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:55001:ed-1:v1:en

http://www.lce.com/Ten_Things_to_Know_about_ISO_55000_the_International_Standard_for_Asset_Management_562-item.html

ISO 55000 White Paper, John Woodhouse, UK Principal Export, ISO PC251 Committee (developing ISO 55000) (link) and his presentation: http://vision-aeam.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/3-1-Brief-intro-to-ISO55000.pdf (February 2014)

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Learn more about our Mutual Aid & Critical Spares Management Solution for Utilities: Make electrical equipment procurement easy and efficient. Locate a matching power transformer before a failure occurs!

Stay updated through our social media platforms and our website:

Subscribe to our Veracity’s monthly newsletter: Critical Spares Management & Investment Recovery for Utilities

Equipment Criticality

What is Criticality?

Criticality is the quality or state of being of the highest importance. When it comes to industrial equipment, criticality focuses on the “business financial impact if an equipment failure was to happen”, according to Lifetime Reliability. Lifetime Reliability is an Australian consulting firm specialized in industrial business process optimization, reliability maintenance management and life cycle asset management.

The risk rating indicator can be calculated as followed:

Equipment Criticality = Failure Frequency (per year) x Cost Consequence ($) = Risk (in $ per year).

Cost Consequence usually includes the cost of lost production and what it takes to repair the equipment.

Why Determining the Criticality Level?

Heavy pieces of equipment, such as power transformers or industrial machinery, belong to the “low-risk, high-impact” category. Even though failure risks are low, the consequences on the company’s operations are significant.

Knowing when such a failure would occur and how much it would cost to fix it or replace it greatly helps planning operations.

If equipment is then known for a high-risk profile, the company can set “resources, engineering effort, operations practices, maintenance and training” to reduce the risks. The action plan should be the verso of its product sheet: you know the potential problems, you know what to do.

The criticality assessment should logically be led by an experimented team. For a further detailed assessment of the criticality level of equipment, the model Defect and Failure True (DAFT) Costs can be used. A DAFT database is developed in a spreadsheet database (if you have software better than Excel, use it!).

Assessment Team

Let’s focus on the team who will assess your equipment’s criticality. They should know:

• the design, and how to operate and maintain the equipment;
• the impact of equipment failure on the production;
• the financial loss for the company due to a production interruption, and on the clients;
• They should use all information available from the upper level and workers in order to determine an accurate and up-to-date equipment profile.
• In the frame of implementing a risk control methodology, they should be familiar with international risk management standards, ISO 31000 being the most common.

One more time, knowledge is power. With a dedicated team and allotted time, assessing the risk profile of your heavy equipment will become a real asset, saving you costs and time in the long-run.

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Risk Matrix

Lifetime Reliability has designed a series of matrices which helps determine the potential consequences, the failure frequency, the risk identification and assessment and the risk treatment schedule and action plan. Clear and easy to use, they can be the basis of risk assessment.

Business-Wide Consequence

The additional factors can help determine the consequences:

• Type of industry
• Lack of equipment standardization
• Service level and required time
• Availability of spares and investment
• Avoiding “just-in-case” model
• Supply chain network
• Logistics
• Available qualified personnel
• Holistic approach, strong communication and cooperation between operations, purchasing and executive teams.

Historical Frequency

Risk Identification and Assessment

Risk Treatment Schedule and Action Plan

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Let’s talk about YOUR equipment. The following questions can be asked:

1. Do you know the risk profiles?
2. Does your equipment belong to the low-frequency/high-power category?
3. What would happen if a failure occurs and requires the replacement of the unit?
4. How difficult is it to source a replacement?
5. Do you use a buddy system (numerous phone calls, emails to your colleagues or acquaintances) which proves to be not so effective?
6. Would you accept the help from a specialized third-party like Veracity Asset Management Group?

We specialize in critical spares management and asset disposition. We help companies like utilities on a daily basis to source or dispose of critical equipment.

Contact us at 866-694-1252 or info@veracityamg.com. We are located in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, with solutions available for the North American market.

Learn more about our Critical Spares Management Solution for Utilities: Make electrical equipment procurement easy and efficient. Locate a matching power transformer before a failure occurs!

Stay updated through our social media platforms and our website:

Go further:

6 Tips to Improve Your Spare Parts Management

The Management of Critical Spares in the Electric & Gas Utility Industry

Strategic Asset Management

Veracity Connect: Critical Asset Management Solution

Equipment Criticality Tutorial, by Lifetime Reliability – Solutions

Your Veracity Connect Newsletter – Volume 6

The Transformer Problem

The consequences of a transformer outage can be potentially catastrophic. From a 20-minute interruption to a several day outage, the failure of a single transformer can leave thousands of customers in the dark and in some cases can result in significant revenue losses.

According to a recent Willis North America Article (March 2008), The Transformer Problem, “transformers have for decades been ranked in the top five (5) by equipment insurers in terms of claims”. To magnify the importance of this issue, a June 2012 study, Large Power Transformers (LPTs) and the US Electric Grid by the U.S. Department of Energy indicated that “the average age of LPTs installed in the United States is approximately 40 years, with 70 percent of LPTs being 25 years or older and some as old as 70 years that are still operating in the grid”. The same source also noted that the useful life of these transformers, as estimated by manufacturers is typically 35 to 40 years.”

Replacing this aging infrastructure is one of the key challenges faced by today’s Utilities. Compounding the challenge is the fact that the “average price of copper more than quadrupled between 2004 and 2011, costing more than $4.27 a pound by 2011” causing the cost of transformers to skyrocket. Willis North America has indicated that “a large transformer that cost $500,000 in 1960 (there are many of this size and vintage still in use), now has a replacement cost of about $4,000,000”. Long lead times also create challenges, with the lead time for a new unit approaching an average of 18-24 months.

In response to these challenges, Veracity Asset Management Group developed Veracity Connect, a proactive critical spares management system. Veracity Connect links utilities, Cooperatives, OEM’s and leading transformer brokers to establish a pool of available critical spares.  Veracity Connect allows utilities the ability to quickly locate matching spare transformers and capital equipment across North America all in one location.

Learn more at www.veracityamg.com. Contact us today at 866-694-1252 or info@veracityamg.com to become a Veracity Connect Member.

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Veracity Connect: Your Critical Spares Management Solution

• Instant access to critical spares such as transformers
• Power of collaboration: reach utilities, OEMs, brokers and industry partners across North America
• Proactive approach: understand where matching spares are before you need them
• Take advantage of pooling/sharing strategies for economies of scale

Contact us now to become a Veracity Connect Member!

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A glimpse of the assets we manage for our clients:

• Substation transformers
• Pad mount transformers
• Pole mount transformers
• Switchgear
• Surplus line trucks
• Steam turbines
• Transmission towers
• LED street lights, such as:

Brand new VIVIX LRL3 and LRL4, 120-277 VAC, 50/60 Hz, full 10-year warranty

Contact us now at 866-694-1252 or info@veracityamg.com

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The 7 R’s of Investment Recovery

 In our continuing segments on the 7 R’s on Investment Recovery we concentrated on number 4: RESELL. We focused on the importance of placing used and unwanted assets back into the market by reaching out to end users or third party dealers and asset management companies.

We are continuing this month with our focus on 5 and 6: RECLAIM and RECYCLE.

Reclamation is a synonym of recycling. It is the process of recovering substances and materials in a pure or usable form from equipment, such as oil in transformers, lithium from batteries or mercury from LCD screens. The difference with recycling is that the substances are recovered but not reprocessed.

Recycling, internally or via recycling facilities, usually involves a specific process where a type of material, such as ferrous and non-ferrous metals, glass or plastic is fused and turned into new, raw materials.

Recycling is strongly recommended. It is essential to reduce the amount of waste ending up in landfills, especially hazardous substances like PCBs. Income can be generated by recycling and reduces the need for virgin materials.

Recycled materials can directly be reused by your company or sent back to the raw material streams. The recycling facility should provide you with certifying documentation, useful to preserve your audit trail and your company reputation.

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Veracity will participate in the Canadian Digital Media Network’s Soft-Landing Fall 2014 Program to help forge the partnerships and connections to take on the U.S. market.

“The Soft-Landing Program has already resulted in millions of dollars in new business and investment for our participating companies and generated more than a 30x return on CDMN’s investment of funds and resources,” said Kevin Tuer, CDMN’s Managing Director.

For more information about the program, please visit www.cdmn.ca/soft-landing-program/overview/

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Catch up on our last company blog posts!

• Transformers: An Essential Link of the Electrical Grid
• Key points from “Economic Benefits of Increasing Electric Grid Resilience to Weather Outages”
• Investment Recovery: the Missing Link in the Supply Chain
• The Trade Show Season Is Open

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Stay updated through our social media platforms and our website:

Learn more about our Critical Spares Management Solution for Utilities: Make electrical equipment procurement easy and efficient. Locate a matching power transformer before a failure occurs!