With increasing level of automation also penetrating into secondary substations, thanks to smart grids and microgrids, it becomes imperative for secondary substations to also be connected amongst each other for distributed applications and also to Control Centers hosting SCADA, DMS applications. Since these secondary distribution substations are generally distributed in urban areas or in remote rural areas, the only viable medium of communication is using public mobile networks.
Using the Arctic product family, another 'layer' of communication solutions is enabled over the substation 'layer' (eg. FDIR, LC1000, GA solutions etc.) to achieve the objectives.
Implementation of a station-level self-healing strategy can help solve many of today’s utility challenges. Deployment of centralized, self-healing capabilities to maximize distribution circuits’
reliability requires automation of switching points as well as a communications platform such as fiber optic or wireless radios.
The Fault Detection, Isolation and load Restoration (FDIR) solution allows the user to cost-effectively automate existing switches or install new reclosers that communicate using standard protocols. The FDIR algorithm is hosted in the COM600 (F variant) and works seamlessly with Relion RER620, RER615 that eventually control the reclosure switches from ABB or 3rd parties. While the substation communication can be based on IEC 61850 GOOSE, the inter-substation communication can be based on DNP or IEC 60870-5
Scope
- Enables the utility to quickly identify the location of a fault, isolate it, thereby limiting the impacted area
- Enables speedy restoration of power during an unplanned outage, by rerouting the flow of power on the distribution grid through unaffected areas
- Coordinated control between groups of reclosers, load break switches, and substation circuit breakers within a substation
Benefits
- Improved personnel safety
- Improved customer service
- Increased revenues
- Lower operations cost
- Reduced risk of fines and lawsuits
- Improve CAIDI and SAIDI metrics by up to 33%
- Significant reduction in restoration time
- Reduce the cost of restoration
- Prevent lost revenues
- Boost the utility’s reputation with customers, stockholders and regulators