CONSEIL INTERNATIONAL DES GRANDS RSEAUX LECTRIQUES INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL ON LARGE ELECTRIC SYSTEMS STUDY COMMITTEE D2 INFORMATION SYSTEMS

AND TELECOMMUNICATION SC D2 Regular Meeting and Colloquium October 2011 Buenos Aires - Argentina As concerns the SC D2 Colloquium, the following three Preferential Subjects were selected as being current issues for the Electric Power Industry:

http: //www.cigre-d2.org

PS1 - Communication Technologies and Solutions for Core Networks in Electric Power Utilities. The technologies and solutions for core networks are evolving and the utilities are seeing an increasing number of new alternatives. Some of them will not be of interest for EPUs and some others are currently being incorporated gradually and will be widely used in the future. The focus was in the following areas, Applications, Reliability and Availability and Experience.

1 Preferential Subject no.1

From the eleven accepted papers, only nine were discussed at the Colloquium due to the ashes cloud; 4 from Europe, 1 from Japan and 4 from Latin America. On October the 19th, introducing Preferential Subject no.1, Mr Di Palma made a genesis about how the selection of final papers was made. He mentioned that sixty questions were issued to the authors with the objective of having added value to each matter, as well as adding concepts and information to the written papers. The questions and their answers were included in each presentation, to focus on the concept of Special Reporter Carlos Di Palma integration content of the paper plus answers. Many of the presentations were related to the migration from TDM communication systems to IP communication systems and MPLS/IP systems. Usually, the decisions aim to maintain SDH (TDM) systems for mission-critical services, and use the IP transmission for the rest of services. The IP transmission system implies the nondeterministic features (or at least, its uninsured deterministic features) that may not be suitable for teleprotection service, differential protection, and so on. Additionally, the complexity of the MPLS/IP systems implies to provide the Utility companies personnel with an important training, demanding time and costs. The use of wavelength multiplexing systems for different services can be a good solution when there are restrictions on the quantity of optical fibres available in the backbone of optical cable network. Another important point to be considered for new communication systems is the requirements of transmission bandwidth required by the EHV Electricity Grids

(Electrical Power Utilities) for their own needs. This situation can be different when the Utility Company acts like a telephone carrier. Additionally two important issues for the Electrical Power Utilities companies were discussed:

Inventory Operation Support Systems (IOSS), taking into account the aspects of the system, the evaluation of the inventory project evaluation cycle, the direction for further deployment cycles, the use of existing information, and so on;

Remote monitoring of optical cable network to increase the availability of the communication systems, and consequently the reliability of the EHV Electricity Grids as well as significantly reducing maintenance costs (preventive procedures and corrective maintenance tasks). Another item that was discussed during the Colloquium was that some utilities are migrating from public telephone operators towards their own communication systems, due to the unsatisfactory results that were obtained with the public telephone companies. The wide spectrum of participants has allowed an important and large analysis of the subjects above mentioned, as well as to exchange experiences and criteria about:

implemented solutions by Utilities Companies; solutions being implemented; doubts about the direction of the migration process;

cautions in decision making prior to migration. To summarize, in the analysis process for a potential migration of communication systems technologies of the EHV Electricity Grid, the two following key questions are to be considered:

What is nowadays the problem of the existing communication system for EHV Electricity Grids?

Which are nowadays the restrictions of the existing communication systems for EHV Electricity Grids? that would justify the replacements of the existing communication systems, as well as obtain an efficient relationship CAPex-OPex.