We’ll come back later to update more … the term ‘bathtub curve’ is the name given to describe a typical trend of forced outage rate across the life of an asset:
1) Increased EFOR at the start of its life (as the units teething issues are ironed out);
2) Lower for many years during the period of normal operation;
3) But climbing again towards the end of life as the unit grapples with the chicken-and-egg dilemma of:
(a) Diminishing remaining commercial life, so reduced incentive to invest in maintenance, hence reducing availability;
(b) Compounded by the reduced availability potentially leading to decisions to retire the unit sooner.
Some prior articles on WattClarity have been tagged with ‘bathtub curve’.