Impact Assessment of Remote Control and Preventive Maintenance on the Failure Rate of a Disconnector Population

This paper presents the impact of different explanatory variables, such as remote control availability and conducted preventive maintenance, among others, on failure statistics of a disconnector population in Sweden using the proportional hazard model. To do so, 2191 work orders were analyzed, which included 1626 disconnectors and 278 major failures. Here, the results show that the remote control availability for disconnectors-an example of such smart-grid technology-has a negative effect on the failure rate, whereas preventive maintenance has a positive impact. It is also shown that the disconnector age is not significant and that certain disconnector types have a significant and positive correlation toward failures when compared to other disconnector types. The results increase the understanding of disconnector failures to improve asset management.