Independent Assessment of Indianapolis Power & Light's
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Independent Assessment of Indianapolis Power & Light’s Downtown Underground Network Final version December 13, 2011 Prepared for the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission by O’Neill Management Consulting, LLC 1820 Peachtree Road, Suite 709 Atlanta, GA 30309 Telephone 404-603-9226 Website: www.oneillmc.com O’Neill Management Consulting, LLC IPL Downtown Network Audit Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................... - 5 - SECTION 1: BACKGROUND ................................................................ - 8 - 1.1 System overview ........................................................................................... - 8 - 1.2 Incidents ...................................................................................................... - 10 - 1.3 Response to the incidents ............................................................................ - 14 - 1.4 The Audit .................................................................................................... - 15 - 1.5 Primer on Underground Electric Distribution Systems .............................. - 16 - SECTION 2 – SYSTEM DESIGN AND SPECIFICATION .............. - 23 - 2.1 IPL System design and specification .......................................................... - 23 - SECTION 3: SYSTEM CONDITION .................................................. - 28 - 3.1 Summary of age and type ........................................................................... - 28 - 3.2 Evidence from inspections .......................................................................... - 31 - 3.3 Condition by type of equipment ................................................................. - 33 - 3.4 Maintenance Planned and Completed ......................................................... - 35 - SECTION 4: SYSTEM PERFORMANCE .......................................... - 37 - 4.1 Measures of system performance ................................................................ - 37 - 4.2 Trends in performance ................................................................................ - 39 - 4.3 Comparisons with other utilities ................................................................. - 41 - SECTION 5: EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ................................. - 43 - 5.1 Emergency Planning ................................................................................... - 43 - SECTION 6 ASSET MANAGEMENT ................................................ - 44 - 6.1 Asset Management ...................................................................................... - 44 - - 2 - O’Neill Management Consulting, LLC IPL Downtown Network Audit 6.2 Capital spending and maintenance .............................................................. - 46 - 6.3 Maintenance and replacement ..................................................................... - 48 - 6.4 Failure analysis ........................................................................................... - 56 - 6.5 The November 19 incident – example of root cause analysis .................... - 58 - SECTION 7: ORGANIZATION AND STAFFING ............................ - 66 - 7.1 Work planning and resources...................................................................... - 66 - SECTION 8: TECHNOLOGY .............................................................. - 68 - 8.1 Technology and secondary networks .......................................................... - 68 - 8.2 SCADA ....................................................................................................... - 69 - 8.3 Loadflow modeling ..................................................................................... - 72 - 8.4 GIS/facilities records .................................................................................. - 73 - 8.5 Thermal imaging ......................................................................................... - 74 - 8.6 Fault direction indicators ............................................................................ - 75 - 8.7 Vented, locking, or lift/locking manholes covers ....................................... - 76 - 8.8 Remote data capture for inspection results via handheld devices ............... - 77 - SECTION 9: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ........ - 79 - 9.1 Conclusions ................................................................................................. - 79 - 9.2 Recommendations ....................................................................................... - 81 - 9.3 Obtaining commitment for implementation ................................................ - 83 - APPENDIX A - RESPONSE OF INDIANAPOLIS POWER & LIGHT COMPANY (“IPL”) TO INDIANA UTILITY REGULATORY COMMISSION QUESTIONS FOR JULY 7, 2011 PUBLIC MEETING - 84 - APPENDIX B - SITUATIONAL AWARENESS .............................. - 103 - - 3 - O’Neill Management Consulting, LLC IPL Downtown Network Audit APPENDIX C – RESUMES OF AUDIT TEAM ............................... - 106 - Daniel E. O’Neill ............................................................................................ - 106 - Charles A. Fijnvandraat, P.E........................................................................... - 114 - APPENDIX D – OBSERVATIONS FROM OUR FIELD INSPECTIONS ..................................................................................... - 117 - - 4 - O’Neill Management Consulting, LLC IPL Downtown Network Audit Executive Summary In September, 2011, in response to a recent increase in network incidents, O’Neill Management Consulting, LLC, was engaged by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) to audit the electrical network in downtown Indianapolis, which is owned and operated by Indianapolis Power & Light (IPL), a subsidiary of AES Corporation. Our firm was selected by the IURC from a list of qualified vendors developed by a process of requests for proposal and competitive bids. Our findings can be summarized as follows: The electrical network in downtown Indianapolis is well designed and regularly maintained. Notwithstanding a higher incidence of recent events, detailed in our report below, the risk to the citizens of, and visitors to, Indianapolis has historically been low; lower, in fact, than in many other major cities’ downtown areas that are served by similar underground facilities. There is risk, but that risk has been, until recently, acceptably low. An analogy can be made to modes of transport such as driving a car, riding in an airplane, or walking the sidewalks. In those modes, the risk is managed by a process that, when it works well, investigates every significant instance of equipment or operator failure, tracing its root cause, and then mandating appropriate remedial action, which might be a traffic citation, an equipment recall, or a mandated change in the design of cars, airplanes, or sidewalks and crossings. As new modes of failure are discovered, new remedies are put in place. Our findings, detailed below, indicate that, based on our examination of the recent and past incidents and our audit of the current system condition and practices in comparison to those of other utilities, there is an immediate need to improve the process by which IPL finds, documents, and remediates failures in its electrical system in downtown Indianapolis. The recommendations contained in this report, if acted upon, can further reduce the risk of service interruption, collateral damage, and possible injury associated with the system. Summarizing, there is not a single, overarching cause for the recent higher frequency of incidents; consequently, our recommendations are threefold, representing three interrelated processes. We find IPL can improve its processes associated with the downtown electrical system by: More effectively finding and documenting the causes of equipment failure, including an increased situational awareness to be applied to the inspection process, focused on finding the root causes of incipient failure, and following up with appropriate repair or replacement. The occurrence of the November 19, 2011 incident only reinforces this recommendation, placing an immediate emphasis on steam leaks in proximity to electric facilities as a priority. - 5 - O’Neill Management Consulting, LLC IPL Downtown Network Audit Evaluating and, as appropriate, adopting certain changes to the design of the equipment used and the standards specified for maintenance and construction, e.g., we suggest an alternative way to terminate the primary cable into the network transformer, a place which has been the source of some of the failures in the past two years. Continuing to implement, and even accelerating, IPL’s adoption of utility asset management practices that are focused on cost-effectively achieving optimal system performance through a combination of condition-based maintenance and/or replacement of equipment and the selective application of technology. The event of November 19, 2011 adds new emphasis and urgency to these issues. It is our opinion that if changes are not made along the lines we suggest, IPL can expect to continue to see network incidents at the rate experienced in 2010-2011, i.e., 3 to 5 per year. This is unacceptable for a system as well-designed as the Indianapolis downtown underground system, especially given the frequency of inspection and rate of replacement of vault equipment. Moreover, spending more money on inspections or replacement will not solve the problem if the myopia in the current inspection process