Measure of the ability of power plants, a unit or a plant section to perform its operational function. A distinction is to be made between equipment availability and energy availability:

  • Equipment availability is the ratio of available time (operating and standby time) to the calendar period. Equipment availability characterizes the reliability of a plant.

  • Energy availability is the ratio of available energy to theoretically possible energy in the period under report. Characterizes the reliability of a plant in general considering all complete and partial outages.