Actual Trends in Development of Power System Protection & Automation

by A. Podshivalin, J. Zakonjsek, G. Nudelman, Russia

The System operator of the Russian Unified Power System (SO UPS), Russian National Committee (RNC) of CIGRE and All-Russian Scientific Research & Development Technological Institute of Relay Engineering (VNIIR) organized an international forum on relay protection and substation automation, which was held on September 7-10, 2009 in Moscow (Russia).

The 2nd International Scientific and Technical Conference “Actual Trends in Development of Power System Protection and Automation” has gathered leading protection and automation scientists and specialists from Russia and the international community. The conference continued the best traditions of the first symposium held in 2007 in Cheboksary (Russia).

Over 270 participants discussed 72 reports organized in the following topics:

• Complex evaluation and methods used for dependability and technical excellence improvement of relay protection systems
• Power system simulation methods and their influence on development of relay protection and automation
• Instrumental and functional integration of different elements used for power system control. Integration of control systems applied to different power system elements
• Standard IEC 61850 and its influence on development of relay protection and substation automation
• Latest trends and developments in power systems control during its normal and emergent operating conditions
• Recording of analog and digital signals during abnormal operation of power systems and their expert analysis. Expert systems for evaluation of power system disturbances

The conference has offered time to all members of the protection and automation community: various levels of the utility, engineering companies, vendors, as well as scientific organizations. The security of the power supply, as the highest priority factor of the UPS Russia (United Power System of Russia) development determined the discussions.

It was important that the conference started an open discussion of the new informational theory of relay protection. The theory is intended to extend the outdated notions and to set the fundamentals for the novel algorithms of modern protection and control operation.

One of the topical issues for Russia was the transition of relays onto microprocessor technology and related problems of engineering, operation and maintenance. A step-by-step and to some extent conservative implementation of the new projects should provide desired reliability of the solutions.

The reports on practical Russian experience with the wide-area and system protection were of special interest.

The existing schemes in Siberia are based upon synchronized phasors measurement and high-performance system analysis complex, which estimates control actions for various scenarios. A multi-level stability control system is adopted in the Russian power system (UPS): local devices providing local high-speed decisions and the distributed systems for global analysis and better stability prediction.

The conference introduced a novel event – a round table “Relay Protection and Automation Systems – Evolution and Prospects”. It was the best opportunity for extended spontaneous comments and emerging opinions to be introduced to the forum. The round table opened, apart from already mentioned issues, to discuss the problem of human resources within the field of secondary power systems. In this respect, two main issues have been detected as very critical and urgent:

• Education of young specialists and
• Their material stimulation in order to keep them working within the field

It has been concluded that it is necessary to expose these questions to the international society of power engineers (CIGRE) and start making some steps to improve the situation.

A major event was held at the end of the conference. During the technical tours to the 500 kV operating substations Ochakovo and Zapadnaya (situated in suburbs of Moscow) the audience was able to learn innovative solutions in modern electrical technology and secondary systems.

As for relay protection and automation specialists, the majority of attention was paid to the secondary equipment at substation Ochakovo, which is the biggest of its range (500/220/110/10 kV GIS) in Europe and one of the biggest in the world. The complete secondary system is based on modern microprocessor technology and IEC 61850 substation communication standard.

More than 370 independent IEDs of the secondary system are complemented with equipment monitoring facilities, disturbance recording and evaluation system, as well as a safety system.