Panel: aging T and D infrastructures and customer service reliability

In many areas of the United States and Europe, there are portions of the local power delivery system where the average equipment age exceeds its design lifetime by a significant increment. Generally, these areas experience a higher than average incidence of both unexpected clear-weather failures, and storm-related outages. This panel will review the problems aging infrastructures create, and address ways that utilities can manage their need to improve reliability in these areas, in an de-regulated environment where capital budgets and engineering stafi are greatly downsized, and regulatory and customer expectations are higher than ever.