GADS Services

GADS Services

GADS Services manages the Generating Availability Data System (GADS). This unique series of databases is used to collect, record, and retrieve operating information for improving the performance of electric generating equipment. It also provides assistance to those researching the vast amounts of information on power plant availability stored in its database. The information is used to support equipment reliability and availability analyses and decision-making by GADS data users.

GADS Services supports the World Energy Council (WEC) in its analysis of electric power supplies. GADS staff participates in WEC committees and teaches workshops in developing countries. The WEC Performance of Generating Plant (PGP) Committee is developing a GADS-type program for collecting power plant outage data worldwide. GADS has worked with PGP members over the past years to provide WEC with GADS-type procedures for the uniform collection and reporting of plant outage data.

Starting in 2004, GADS Services has opened the GADS database to generating companies outside North America. There were a number of European, Asian, and South American companies who wanted to report GADS data in GADS format to NERC in exchange for access to manufacturer-specific data, available to GADS members only. For a nominal annual fee, the international affiliate GADS members can be part of GADS and receive large discounts on the purchase of the pc-GAR software. For more information, please contact Mike Curley at mike.curley@nerc.net.

GADS Publications and Software

GADS data are compiled annually and reported in the Generating Availability Report (GAR) and its accompanying summary statistical brochure. GAR presents data for five individual years and for a five-year average with generating unit availability statistics provided on both a capacity weighted and non-weighted basis. GAR is available to download at no cost from the following links: Generating Availability Report and Generating Unit Statistical Brochure.

GADS Services produces a Historical Availability Statistics (HAS) report. HAS provides annual performance information starting from 1982 through the most current year for the same groups of units in the traditional GAR reports. HAS includes annual, five-year, ten-year and multi-year interval reports for each of 63 generator unit groups. GAR and HAS are combined into one self-expanding program. These Windows-based programs are free to all interested parties and can be downloaded from NERC's web site at http://www.nerc.com/~filez/gar.html.

GADS Services offers pc-GAR, a premier software product for analyzing power plant performance data. pc-GAR provides users access to millions of event records collected by GADS Services since 1982; it is used in 12 countries and is the model used by the WEC PGP Committee. pc-GAR is an information software package designed for personal computers. It is a user-friendly program that allows access to the thousands of GADS records. The program enables analysts to evaluate generator equipment performance on generating units, equipment groups, and major components. Users can access more than 2,000 cause codes collected from outage records and multi-years of performance and statistical information. Hundreds of utility analysts in more than a dozen countries use pc-GAR. For a free, time-limited demonstration copy of the pc-GAR, please contact Mike Curley, Manager of GADS Services. For more information on pc-GAR, click on the pc-GAR link above.

In 2005, GADS Services introduced a new software product using the GADS data. The purpose of the software was to calculate the time between failure (TBF) and the time to repair (TTR) based on pc-GAR retrieval criteria, event types and cause codes. The software, pc-GAR MT, is available for your analysis of failure rates and modeling work. Contact GADS Services for more details.

GADS Workshops

The annual GADS Data Reporting Workshop is a one and one-half day meeting that focuses on data collection and reporting techniques; it emphasizes the importance of accurate data reporting. It also builds confidence in GADS data users who come away satisfied that GADS reports provide an accurate resource of generating unit performance information. The workshop is open to anyone interested in learning about the data gathering process.

Special “in-house” workshops are available to those interested in training their complete staff at their home facility. Contact Mike Curley for cost and availability.

GADS-Related Projects

GADS Services is working on projects and activities designed to help generating facility operators improve unit reliability and performance. These include:

Benchmarking Services - GADS Services offered a unique service for locating peer units of similar design and operating characteristics that establishes performance benchmarks for improving individual unit reliability and availability. Both domestic- and foreign-based utilities have commissioned GADS Services to benchmark generating units. See the link “Benchmarking” above for more details.

Special Studies - GADS Services offers special generating unit performance studies to anyone whose requirements cannot be met by any of the GADS products or publications. Since 1982, GADS Services has conducted more than 1,000 studies dealing with a variety of analyses relating to generating units and equipment/component failures.

Manufacturers Support Services - The Manufacturers Support Services (MSS) project allows manufacturers to review their equipment failures and to increase the reliability of their equipment. Each year, GADS receives more than 100,000 outage events containing vital information on almost every major generating unit in the United States and Canada. GADS matches these data with the design information on the unit's major equipment, providing a history of equipment outages and repairs for use in increasing equipment reliability. Manufacturers benefit by having a low cost resource to the histories of equipment problems; power generators benefit as manufacturers learn from equipment failure histories and improve their equipment. GADS Services encourages manufacturer participation in this reliability improvement program.

HILP Studies - NERC's High-Impact Low-Probability (HILP) analyses can warn power generators about infrequent forced outage events that could cripple generating plants for a long period of time. By reviewing the outage records collected by GADS, we learn from the experiences of others in order to prevent the same problem from occurring again. The hundreds of thousands of historical equipment records at the heart of the HILP analysis contain the time and energy impacts of each unit outage. Previous HILP studies involved water induction, coal plants with shared equipment, and several types of equipment failures. Through this program, GADS Services is available to assist power generators to maintain or increase generating unit availability and reliability.

GADS Continues to Help the Industry

GADS Services has continued to improve the database by keeping tabs on the industry needs. For example, over the last several years, GADS has upgraded the pc-GAR by adding new combined cycle information for analyzing the individual gas turbines, the steam turbine or the entire block (the combination of GT and steam turbine). GADS Service is also adding wind turbine, the first renewable generating source, to GADS so that companies can benchmark WT equipment.

GADS Services is an active member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Power Division. Through its work with the ASME Reliability, Availability and Maintainability (RAM) Committee, GADS encourages top quality technical papers and panel discussions at the annual ASME Power Conferences. Each year papers are presented that demonstrate new ways to use GADS data to improve power plant performance.

GADS Services was an active member of the latest revision of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Standard 762, “Definitions for Reporting Electric Generating Unit Reliability, Availability and Productivity.” As a result of the NERC involvement with IEEE 762, NERC now has the new modified standard for measuring the performance of cycling and peaking generating units (demand-related reliability) as part of its software and data calculations. For more details, see Appendix F of the GADS Data Reporting Instructions in the link “Data Reporting Instructions” above.

GADS collects event and performance data for gas turbines and jet engine units. Strategic Power Systems, Inc. also collects these data for its Operational Reliability Analysis Program (ORAP) database. Because it was inefficient for power generators to report the same information in different formats to both databases, NERC and SPS created a software program that both companies could use.

The nuclear industry is on the rebound. Thus, GADS Services is developing a working relationship with the Institute of Nuclear Operation (INPO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Power Reactor Information System (PRIS) members. GADS Services hopes to cut the reporting requirements of US nuclear operators by reporting once to GADS, INPO, and PRIS databases.

As a member of the United States Energy Association (USEA), NERC supports the generating availability improvement discussions within USEA, World Energy Congress and the WEC Performance of Generating Plant Committee.

For more information about GADS Services, please contact G. Michael Curley, Manager-GADS Services at mike.curley@nerc.net.