The IEEE Gold Book

his column is devoted to a discussion of the IEEE Gold Book. Officially, the Gold Book is IEEE Standard 493, IEEE Recommended Practice for the Design of Reliable Industrial and Commercial Power Systems. The IEEE Gold Book is moving through the revision process under the leadership of Don Koval (donkoval@home.com). If you are interested in participating in the development of the next revision of the IEEE Gold Book, feel free to contact Chairperson Koval. Better yet, attend either the IAS Industrial and Commercial Power Systems Conference (held each May) or the IAS Annual Meeting (held each October), get involved, and participate in person. The design of reliable industrial and commercial power distribution systems is important because of the high costs associated with power outages and their significant impact on society. It is necessary to consider the cost of power outages when making decisions for new power distribution systems as well as to have the ability to make quantitative cost-versus-reliability trade-off studies. The IEEE Gold Book aims to provide credible data concerning equipment reliability and the cost of power outages so that these trade-off studies can be conducted. The purpose of the IEEE Gold Book is to provide sufficient information so that reliability analysis can be performed on power systems without requiring cross-references to other texts. Information included in the book is the result of extensive surveys of the reliability of electrical equipment in industrial plants and also the costs of power outages for both industrial plants and commercial buildings. The

reliability surveys provide historical experience to those who have not been able to collect their own data. The IEEE Gold Book contains many reliability aspects. The basic concepts of reliability analysis by probability methods are the focus of a later chapter in the book, but it may be best to read it first to understand the probabilistic and statistical formulas used throughout the rest of the book. A planning and design chapter provides the fundamentals of power system reliability evaluation (data required, method of evaluation, etc.) and the economic evaluation of reliability (costs of power outage data, costs of maintenance, etc.). Several examples illustrating these concepts are included. Another chapter focuses on summarizing equipment reliability data obtained from surveys over a 35-year period. The survey results provide users with the failure characteristics of electrical equipment. Tables are provided throughout the chapter for different pieces of equipment. More extensive information about these surveys is included in the appendix of this book. Another aspect of the book focuses on the improvement and evaluation of reliability in existing facilities. It provides steps for the plant engineer to take to examine reliability. Preventive maintenance can be instrumental in maintaining reliability and should be considered from the design phase. Another chapter includes the why of electrical preventive maintenance and its role in system reliability. Even with good design techniques, outages will occur in electrical equipment, so some form of standby system may be needed for critical loads. Thus, some concepts of emergency and standby power are included in the IEEE Gold Book. A

chapter is even devoted to reliability compliance testing for emergency and standby power systems. To illustrate the reliability concepts discussed in the book, an entire chapter provides examples of reliability analysis and cost evaluations. In todays environment, voltage sags are a reliability concern. Understanding these sags and a methodology for estimating the frequency of these sags are also topics of discussion in the IEEE Gold Book. An extensive set of appendices is also included in the IEEE Gold Book. These appendices contain the information obtained from the system reliability surveys, cost surveys, working group procedures on reliability, and different types of equipment surveys. Some of the equipment included are motors, motor starters, generators, transformers, circuit breakers, disconnect switches, bus ducts, switchgear, cables, electric utility power supplies, etc. These survey reports also contain discussions and conclusions. In summary, the IEEE Gold Book is an excellent guide for reliability issues pertaining to industrial and commercial power systems. No other publication contains as much useful, authoritative information on power system and equipment reliability in industrial and commercial facilities as the IEEE Gold Book. I encourage anyone interested to contact Don Koval or attend one of the Industrial and Commercial Power Systems Department technical conferences (or the IAS Annual Meeting) where development of the Gold Book takes place. Your questions, comments, and contributions are always welcome; feel free to contact me at halpin@ece.msstate.edu if I can be of any assistance. IAS

IEEE INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS MAGAZINE JAN|FEB 2002 WWW.IEEE.ORG/IAS