An approach to link maintenance and replacement decisions is presented in this paper. This approach proposes a methodical decision-making system to determine the optimal time to replace equipment. It essentially investigates the cost-effectiveness of replacing the equipment both before and after the lifetime is extended by maintenance. To properly investigate the effect of maintenance, maintenance activities should first be scheduled effectively. Therefore, this approach introduces a maintenance strategy based on reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) concept and genetic algorithm (GA) to optimally schedule maintenance activities. Two replacement studies are conducted: with and without the effect of maintenance. A comparison between replacement studies is discussed in the proposed approach. The proposed approach is applied to one of the most critical pieces of equipment in power systems: power transformer.Index Terms-Asset management, genetic algorithm (GA), reliability-centered maintenance, transformer replacement.

The problem of measuring the availability of generation units in electric power systems has been addressed in the literature by using a set of analytical equations and Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS). MCS, as a powerful simulation tool, is much easier to use than analytical approaches in measuring the availability of large applications. However, the simulated process using MCS entails deducing the operating state sequences for each component along the simulated time followed by combining all sequences for all components in order to deduce system availability. This simulated process is both lengthy and timeconsuming. This paper introduces a new method to measure the availability of generation units and optimize their utilization using Discrete Event Simulation (DES) model. The experimental result of a real case study illustrates the efficiency of using DES.

The economy of Saudi Arabia is primarily oil-based, and the energy system is heavily dependent on fossil fuel sources. Electrical demand in Saudi Arabia has been overgrowing due to the high rates of both population and economy. The real problem is that most of this demand has been met by polluting sources, which in turn causes severe economic and environmental challenges. Despite the abundant amount of clean and freely available renewable sources, the practice of benefiting from these sources is minimal and modest. Therefore, the country has launched a promising vision, one pillar of which is diversifying energy sources and reducing dependence on oil. Since Saudi Arabia is located within the equatorial Sun Belt area, the country is a candidate for leading the World’s renewable energy industry, particularly solar energy. This paper discusses the current energy policy in Saudi Arabia, the associated main energy-related challenges and promising opportunities, and the efforts and actions taken by the country’s policymakers to address these challenges and to take advantage of available opportunities–especially those related to electrical energy–to assure continued future prosperity for subsequent generations.

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Throughout history, the community of Makkah has been known to make every effort to serve the Muslims who come to perform the Hajj ritual (Pilgrimage), the fifth pillar of Islam. However, the Hajj of 1441 H (2020) was different due to the outbreak of the new Coronavirus