Secondary sector · Power Generation & Storage
A balance-of-plant fault should not add a day to the outage.
AIMMS handles the permitted digital tasks around the repair. It connects operating evidence, OEM procedures, asset history, parts, critical spares, warranty rules, suppliers, approvals, and closeout in one governed return-to-service path.
What you get The OEM procedure, the confirmed cause, the installed variant, usable spares, the warranty position and the spend approval assembled before the outage clock turns into phone calls.
- No live-control writes
- Warranty evidence captured as you go
- Plant-defined approvals
Fault Balance-of-plant fault extending a forced outage
AIMMS Evidence, parts, suppliers, approvals
Return Authorized return with warranty-ready evidence
Read-only operating context · Customer-defined approvals · Direct live-control writes permanently out of scope
Why maintenance is getting harder here
Forced outage performance is getting worse while the spares queue gets longer.
Each one is a published third-party figure on North American generation reliability and the equipment supply chain around it, carrying its source and its year. None is an EQUA result and none describes your fleet. What each one does to a repair, and what AIMMS does about that, is stated beside it.
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Critical assets are staying in service longer, and failing more often.
9.2% weighted equivalent forced outage rate for conventional generation in 2025, up year over year across the fleet NERC 2026 State of Reliability, June 2026, opens in a new tabDuring the repairMore corrective events land on the same crew, in the same outage windows, against balance-of-plant equipment whose OEM documentation and installed configuration have drifted apart over twenty years of service.
What AIMMS changesOpens the case against the asset, assembles the OEM evidence and the operating context, and surfaces the likely cause with the check that confirms it before the outage clock becomes phone calls.
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The oldest units carry the most of it.
14.1% forced outage rate for coal units in 2025, up from 11.2% in 2024 NERC 2026 State of Reliability, June 2026, opens in a new tabDuring the repairThe units under the most maintenance pressure are the ones whose original engineering staff have already retired, so the fastest diagnostic path on the unit is a memory rather than a record.
What AIMMS changesCaptures the confirmed cause, the part fitted, the as-found and as-left readings and the technician’s own account while the work is happening, and keeps it attached to the unit.
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There is less room for downtime.
39.8 TWh of additional unavailable energy from coal units in 2025, with combined-cycle units adding a further 19.1 TWh NERC 2026 State of Reliability, June 2026, opens in a new tabDuring the repairUnavailable energy is dispatch the fleet was counted on to provide. Every hour the work spends waiting on evidence, a part identity or a spend approval is an hour that competes with the repair itself.
What AIMMS changesTakes the digital delay off the critical path so the work can start when the crew is ready rather than when the last piece of the case is assembled.
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The right part is harder to get right and get fast.
143 weeks average lead time for a generator step-up transformer in Q2 2025, against 128 weeks for a standard power transformer Wood Mackenzie, Q2 2025 lead times, published October 2025, opens in a new tabDuring the repairWarranty position, installed variant and approved alternates all have to be settled before an order goes out, and the cost of settling them wrongly is measured in seasons rather than in restocking fees.
What AIMMS changesReconciles the installed variant against the parts record and usable stock, keeps the OEM correspondence and configuration evidence attached to the case, and prepares the sourcing route under your policies.
Together these say unavailability is rising and the equipment behind it is harder to get than it was. They say nothing about how much of any given outage is coordination rather than engineering. Only your own outage log answers that, which is what the calculator further down this page is for.
Published third-party sector research does not establish AIMMS effectiveness. Only a baselined deployment on the customer's own workflow can do that.
Your own arithmetic
Price the outage hours that coordination, not engineering, is consuming.
Two numbers from your own outage log: how many corrective balance-of-plant events the unit takes a year, and how long each one sits between the trip and an approved, executable work path. No projection is applied to either.
Move both controls. Use last year’s outage log, not our example.
These are your outage-log numbers. No recovered hour is credited to AIMMS anywhere on this page. Nothing you type here leaves your browser.
This section needs JavaScript to do your arithmetic. The figures beside it are the worked example for 14 balance-of-plant events a year at 19 waiting hours each. To use your own numbers, open the full value model.
266 hours a year
That is outage time spent assembling a decision, not executing one.
Replacement power, contractor standby, expedited freight, unrecovered warranty. Enter the number your plant already uses for an unavailable hour, or leave it empty.
Add an hourly impact figure and this becomes an annual number you can take to a dispatch or budget conversation.
They arrive there as events a year, avoidable hours per event, and cost per hour, where your finance team can argue with each one separately.
Book Your 20-Minute Assessment What the plant gets
Return capacity sooner, and prove it on your own unit.
Four operating outcomes the AIMMS workflow is built to produce around a balance-of-plant fault. They are outcomes we design for and draw hatched.
Your KPI contract On a generation or storage pilot, the deciding numbers come off your own outage log. Six KPIs, agreed and baselined on the selected unit before the first outage in scope, then reported against that baseline. See the KPI contract this pilot will measure.
Build the outage value model on your own dispatch economics KPI contract
Measure the outage time that coordination, not engineering, is consuming.
Baseline the current outage workflow before the pilot starts, measure the pilot against that baseline, and expand only when the evidence supports the decision. Every number here comes off your unit, not off ours.
- Fault-to-ready-work time
- Elapsed time until the team has a reviewed, executable work path.
- Outage duration
- Unavailable or constrained generation and storage-support hours.
- Part certainty
- Installed variant, approved alternate, usable stock, and lead-time risk confirmed.
- Supplier and warranty cycle
- Elapsed time to a usable supplier or OEM decision.
- Mobilization readiness
- Work packages, parts, evidence, and approvals complete before arrival.
- Closeout completeness
- Required technical, warranty, approval, and return evidence captured.
Forced outage · Dispatch window at risk
The equipment waits while evidence, warranty, parts, suppliers, and authority converge.
An alarm or inspection can identify the problem quickly. The team still has to assemble OEM evidence, confirm the operating context, protect warranty, verify the exact component, find stock, mobilize a supplier, route approval, and complete the record.
Where elapsed time accumulates
- 01 Alarm or inspection finding
- 02 OEM evidence and history assembled
- 03 Warranty and safe checks confirmed
- 04 Part, spare, and supplier verified
- 05 Approval and mobilization moved
- 06 Return and closeout documented
Detection has economic value only when approved, executable work starts moving.
Circulating water pump
Condenser
Steam turbine
Generator
Grid interconnection
Modelled clock from the trip to a synchronized unit
19 of 28 modelled hours are outage duration nobody engineered. Seven of them are the actual repair.
- 0.5 h Trip logged, unit off line Waiting on coordination
- 4 h OEM manual, prior case and warranty position assembled Waiting on coordination
- 4.5 h Installed variant and usable spare confirmed Waiting on coordination
- 8 h Supplier mobilization and spend approval Waiting on coordination
- 7 h Physical work at the pump skid Hands on the asset
- 2 h Test, warm-up and synchronize Verified and returned
- 2 h Outage record and warranty file closed Waiting on coordination
Segment lengths follow the modelled premise stated further down this page. Hatched blocks are modelled waiting, the solid block is the physical work, and the green block is the plant’s own verified synchronization.
Stated-premise model
What the coordination share is worth on one unit in a year.
A 250 MW combined-cycle unit taking 14 corrective balance-of-plant events a year, each holding 19 hours between the trip and an approved, executable work path.
- 14 corrective events a year
- Balance of plant only: circulating water, feedwater, compressed air, cooling and auxiliary electrical. Not turbine or generator majors.
- 19 h waiting per event
- From trip logged to a path with the cause confirmed, the installed variant matched, the spare located and the spend approved. Excludes the physical work, testing and synchronization.
- 0 h improvement assumed
- No AIMMS effect is present anywhere in this arithmetic. The model sizes the delay and stops.
266 modelled coordination hours a year
Roughly 11 elapsed days a year inside the unit’s own outage clock, spent assembling a decision rather than executing one.
14 events multiplied by 19 waiting hours is 266 hours. Each input is an assumption we chose and printed, which is why the figure is hatched rather than solid. Replace them with your own in the calculator at the top of this page.
Modelled from the stated premise and the assumptions shown. No AIMMS effect is applied.
Start where the outage clock is longest
Start with a bounded asset family or outage workflow where delay has a visible cost.
The strongest first scope sits around balance-of-plant, storage-support, outage, commissioning, or warranty work without entering live-control authority.
Generation balance of plant
Pumps, compressors, cooling systems, fans, auxiliary electrical equipment, generators, and fuel or emissions-support assets.
Energy-storage support
BESS HVAC, thermal management, auxiliary power, inverter and container support, communications support, and warranty workflows.
Planned and forced outages
Work packages, inspection findings, job kits, supplier mobilization, contractor evidence, approvals, return, and closeout.
Commissioning and critical spares
As-built configuration, startup issues, OEM exceptions, warranties, installed variants, approved alternates, and long-lead spares.
The same everywhere
What does not change when the asset does.
The parts above are specific to power generation & storage. These are not: they are the same system, the same boundary and the same business case whichever operation you run.
- The operating contract The same seven questions answered at all six stages: what starts it, what AIMMS reads, what it does, who decides, what happens when something is missing, what is left behind, and what a pilot measures.
- One fault, followed end to end A single pump fault from alarm to verified return, and the Data Twin that gives AIMMS approved context without replacing a system of record.
- Security, control and authority Who can do what, what is read-only, what AIMMS does when a dependency fails, and why no setting exists that would let it write to a control system.
- The business case, on your numbers Five visible formulas, every input supplied by your finance team, and our measured production evidence kept on the other side of an explicit boundary.
Power Generation & Storage FAQ
Direct answers for outage planning, plant management, commercial, and IT.
The first conversation should resolve where the workflow starts, how far the control boundary sits from live dispatch, and how the outage KPIs will be baselined.
Does AIMMS replace our outage, EAM, CMMS, ERP, historian, or monitoring systems?
No mandatory replacement is required. Existing systems remain authoritative. AIMMS creates a controlled Data Twin that connects the selected event-to-action workflow and coordinates permitted work across those sources. Pilot writeback stays inside AIMMS. External CMMS, EAM, or ERP writeback requires customer approval and a validated integration.
Where should a generation or storage deployment start?
Strong first scopes include a balance-of-plant pump or compressor workflow, BESS HVAC or thermal-management support, planned-outage work-package readiness, commissioning deficiencies, or a warranty workflow. Start where delay is measurable and control boundaries are clear.
Can AIMMS issue BESS, generator, or plant-control commands?
No. Direct charge, discharge, BMS, generator, fire-system, setpoint, interlock, and other live-control writes are permanently outside AIMMS scope. Qualified customer personnel retain operating and return authority.
How does AIMMS help with warranty and OEM coordination?
It connects the fault, installed configuration, operating evidence, relevant procedure, warranty terms, prior correspondence, required part, supplier action, approval, and final repair record so the case moves with complete context.
What is the target timeline for a first pilot?
The working target is two weeks to configure the Data Twin and workflow, followed by a focused 30-day pilot across 10 to 20 selected assets. Timing remains customizable based on data, security, complexity, and site requirements.
Where do the NERC and supply-chain figures on this page come from?
The benchmark band cites NERC and Wood Mackenzie inline. The stated-premise model prints every assumption beside the hatched figure. The measured deployment scope and limitations sit directly below the four EQUA metrics.
Bring us the outage, storage-support, or warranty workflow that keeps stalling.
In 20 minutes, we will map the delay, the permitted digital work AIMMS can move, the customer authority boundary, and a measurable first-deployment target.
One operating problem. One focused working session. No obligation.