Advancing the Reliability and Maintenance Standards of Electrical Systems with Alan Ross

In this episode, James interviews Alan Ross, former Vice-President of Reliability at SDMeyers and President of the Electric Power Reliability Alliance. Alan Ross has been involved with electrical systems for roughly 30 years and is now dedicated to transforming the industry by educating the next generation of electrical reliability mentors and leaders. He will do this through the Electric Power Reliability Alliance.

In this episode we covered:

  • The Background and Purpose of the EPRA.
  • The Reliability and Maintenance Standards of Electrical Systems.
  • How Production Quality of Electrical System pieces has changed.
  • How You Can Help the EPRA on their mission

The Electric Power Reliability Alliance is described by Alan as a practitioner to practitioner alliance. Witnessing plants lose millions from power losses, Alan knew that there must be a better plan than simply the classic run to failure lifecycle and decided to do something.

We need standards, not opinions.

The eventual result was the Electric Power Reliability Alliance. They brought together all of the 22 assets for high-voltage systems and examined the general standards for maintenance and testing. The EPRA found that across the industry best practices were nowhere near being met.

While electrical systems benefit from parts that still operate nearly a century later, this out of sight, out of mind attitude has led to poor maintenance and monitoring practices across the board. But breakdowns can be costly. These 40-year-old cables and transformers are at huge risk. According to Alan, the average age of power transformers is 38 years.

Frost and Sullivan did a report. 72% had little confidence in their utilities.

We want to cost-effectively give people the tools to meet the best maintenance standards for their electrical systems.

The goal behind EPRA is to get the knowledge and the skills to the practitioner and rather than own tools, they help practitioners share knowledge.

Alan Ross espouses how the EPRA works to put power in the hands of the practitioner so they have the tools for practical planning and budgeting. The way they are going about this is to help advance information on even an extreme level of detail of systems. This includes an app where one can find and best practice standards and methods to meet them.

Instead of holding expos which become more about money, the EPRA holds a summit in partnership with the University of Texas Austin and their center of electromechanical research.

Tangible tools for the practitioner in maintaining their electrical system.

Alan says that to help the EPRA you should find someone on the electrical side of your plant or company that can go find out more about EPRA, and help them lead the charge. They want to build an ever-larger network of professionals who can proliferate these standards and methods.

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