Project LIONS

Project LIONS is a joint Research & Development project by REN - the Portuguese Transmission System Operator [TSO] - and Albatroz Engineering to improve the operational and maintenance efficience of the electrical transmission grid (LIONS stands for LIne OptimisatioN System) based on space and time data from multiple sources.

It involves complex number crunching and probabilistic approaches to estimate signficant variables related to the grid condition:

• multi-variable probability of failure,
• reliability,
• availability,
• severity of failure,
• consequences (= cost) of failure,
• criticality,
• risk indexes,
• contigency scenarios,
• probabilistic energy routing.

The project started in 2011 and should be completed by December 2014.

Beyond the major parties, and following with Albatroz Engineering values to Connect people, business and knowledge, Project LIONS also involved a permanent scientific cooperation with Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia and has been associated with three Master of Science dissertations by students from this faculty and also from Instituto Superior Técnico.

Please, see Education, R&D collaborations for further details.

Motivation

Improve the  total cost of ownership  of a mature transmission grid embedded within its  environment , satisfying all stakeholders with high  quality of service .

The motivation sentence summarises the guidelines of the project:

Total Cost of Ownership

It involves the asset cost, its amortization throughout the service life but has an emphasis on asset value updates depending on actual ageing estimated while in operation and costs of inspection and maintenance actions.

Environment

The Portuguese transmission grid has very high standards of equipment reliability. Hence, most trippings, incidents and much of the maintenance activities deal with weather, flora, fauna and human activities that occur around the grid and beyond the control of the TSO.

Quality of Service

The measure of success of the project will depend on maintaining or improving the technical quality of service while optimising expenditure (maintenance of existing assets and, on a lesser weight, investments on new assets).

It is also important to emphasise that the project aims at a mature transmission grid where the assessment of actual remaining lifetime depending on the history of usage and mainentence is a key parameter, as compared as the initial lifetime set when equipments entered service decades ago.

Scope of activities

The graph in the Grid Intelligence & Opitimisation [GIO] page introduces the scope of activities of Project LIONS, while the graph below introduces the methodology that leads to the determination of probability of failure, a key element of the project:

It is shown how the equipments (the assets under control of the TSO) and the environment (the factors beyond the control of the TSO) follow parallel dual paths as they both contribute to the overal grid reliability.

The legend below emphasises the most important scientific areas involved at each stage of the research.

Publications related to LIONS

During the course of the project, the technical intermediate results were disseminated in multiple conferences through the joint authorship of seven papers. One more paper has been accepted for publication in 2014.

Please, check the publications page for updates, abstracts and information on other papers.

Advances in Vegetation Management to improve Reliability

by J. Gomes-Mota, F. Azevedo¹, J. Casaca ², V. Almeida, N. Pinho da Silva, L. Campos Pinto^2
1 CENTRIA, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia Universidade Nova de Lisboa, ² REN - Rede Eléctrica Nacional

presented at CIGRÉ International Conference on Condition Monitoring, Diagnosis and Maintenance - CMDM 2013 (Study Committee B2), 2-5 September, Bucharest, Romania, cmdm2013.org.

Automatic detection of stork nests on VHV towers

by João Fernandes¹, Maria Paula Queluz¹, Tomás Brandão², Francisco Azevedo³, João Gomes Mota^3
1IT/IST/Technical University Lisbon, ²IT/ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon, ³Albatroz Engineering, Lisbon

presented at ConfTELE 2013, Castelo Branco, Portugal, May 8-10, 2013.

OHL Assessment and Risk Evaluation Based on Environmental and Inspection Data

by F. Azevedo¹, J. Gomes-Mota, L. Campos Pinto², N. Machado², S.A.B. de Almeida de Graaff^3
1 CENTRIA, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia Universidade Nova de Lisboa, ² REN - Rede Eléctrica Nacional , ³ TenneT TSO B.V.

presented at 2012 CIGRÉ Canada Conference, Montréal, Canada, September 24-26, 2012, cigre-canada.org , cigre.ca.

Long term assessment of critical factors affecting the reliability of transmission grids

by J. Gomes-Mota¹, F. Azevedo², L. Campos Pinto³, J. Casaca ^3
1 Albatroz Engenharia, ² CENTRIA, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia Universidade Nova de Lisboa, ³ REN - Rede Eléctrica Nacional

presented at 12th IAEE European Energy Conference, September 9-12, 2012, Venice, Italy, iaee.org, iaeeu2021.it.

How environment factors impact line performance - Field results from Southwest Europe

by J. Gomes-Mota, Ana Brantes, Luís Campos Pinto¹, Francisco Azevedo^2
1 REN - Rede Eléctrica Nacional, ² CENTRIA, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia Universidade Nova de Lisboa

presented at International Conference on Environment and Electrical Engineering 2012, EEEIC2012, May 18-24, 2012, Venice, Italy, eeeic.eu .

Unified Status Evaluation for Reliability Assessment of Over-Head Power Grids

by J. Gomes-Mota

presented at International Conference on Condition Monitoring, Diagnosis and Maintenance - CMDM 2011, September 19-23, 2011, Bucharest, Romania, cmdm2011.org .

Caracterização Ambiental da rede de transmissão portuguesa a partir de dados de inspecção de linhas

by F. Azevedo¹, J. Gomes-Mota², L. Campos Pinto³, J. Casaca³ (Study Committe C3)
¹ CENTRIA, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia Universidade Nova de Lisboa, ² Albatroz Engenharia SA, ³ REN - Redes Energéticas Nacionais

Desenhando uma família de sistemas de inspecção de linhas desde o peão até ao helicóptero tripulado

by J. Gomes-Mota(Study Committe B2)

both papers in Portuguese presented at XIV ERIAC - 14^th Meeting of the Iberian-American Region of CIGRÉ (XIV Encontro Região Ibero-Americana do CIGRÉ), May 22^nd - 26^th, 2011, Ciudad del Este, Paraguai, xiveriac.cigre.org.py .