Field experience

The first substation automation system for a high-voltage substation with control devices operating under PRP successfully passed the factory test last year, after extensive tests. The tests have proven that the technology is ready to be applied to substation automation devices and that it performs as expected with zero switch over time.

One of the major requirements for this project was to have fully redundant communication down to the bay level IED to ensure no single point of failure in respect of controlling the substation. Therefore a fully redundant solution with redundant station computers (MicroSCADA 1 and MicroSCADA 2) in hot stand-by configuration for the control and monitoring at the substation level as well as redundant gateway functionality for the telecontrol function has been supplied. For control at the bay level ABB's latest control devices for high voltage applications REC670 were used.

The connection of the bay control units (REC670) is done using two completely separated networks which are configured as a ring. The entire system is synchronized using SNTP sent in parallel to both networks using two independent GPS receivers with integrated SNTP time servers. The communication system is supervised using SNMP, thus any failure of the redundant connection of any device is immediately reported to the system.