South African system integrator Drivecor has implemented what is said to be a world first, non-telemetric solution for substation automation.
Using the network-ready universal relays from GE Power Management on an Ethernet local area network, data and control can now be managed more effectively and more efficiently than with traditional tele-metry-based systems.
Drivecor, in conjunction with local supervisory control and data acquisition (scada) system developer Adroit Technologies, and with the assistance of Aucamp Electronics, has successfully designed and installed what is believed to be a world-first solution for the automation of three substations managed by Nelspruit municipality.
'The automation industry is moving away from expensive, proprietary systems towards off-the-shelf, affordable new technologies that are the result of the PC consumer revolution. 'Ethernet is one of those technologies,'Drivecor Marketing Manager Blaize Magee says. 'The technology is ideally suited to the retrofit of existing substations as well as for new installations.
'The project required our scada to interface with GE Power Management protection relays via a SISCO OPC server,' says Adroit International Business Development Manager Paul Geng, adding that this was achieved using MMS/UCA 2.0 protocol -the basis of IEC 61850. 'ur strong presence in the electrical automation arena has lead us to recognise a strong trend towards using standard, fully defined utility-based protocols like MMS/UCA2.0 (IEC61850). Standardisation and flexibility will create a greater number of vendors and drive the cost of ownership down. Thus, end-users are set to gain most from the new technology,'says Geng.
'ith more than 100 Mb network systems freely available, this is certainly the way to go and we therefore thought it worthwhile to work in tandem with a company that has extensive experience in substation control and protection.'
Adroit intends to gain further credibility in the utility industry by continuously introducing new trends and technologies for the ultimate benefit of the company'clients.
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