CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................2
2 MAINFUNCTIONSofSAS.........................................................................................................3
2.1 CONTROL:.........................................................................................................................3
2.2 MONITORING:..................................................................................................................3
2.3 AlARMING:........................................................................................................................4
2.4 MEASUREMENTS:.............................................................................................................4
2.5 VOLTAGEREGULATION:...................................................................................................4
3 SYSTEMARCHTECTURE............................................................................................................4
4 SUBSTATIONCONTROLSYSTEMS............................................................................................5
5 STATIONLEVELSTRUCTURE....................................................................................................5
6 INTRODUCTIONTOIEC61850.................................................................................................6
7 SASSIGNALLIST.......................................................................................................................7

1 INTRODUCTION
Physically, all electric substations are comprised of a group of high voltage apparatus
whose individual sizes depend on substation operation voltages, which is called the primary
equipment, as well as by a lot of low voltage smaller components, which as a whole are
called the secondary system.
The group of high voltage apparatus comprises changing state equipment or switchgear
(circuit breakers, disconnectors and earthing switches, instrument transformers (voltage
transformers and current transformers), power transformers, etc.
The secondary system consists of a less visible set of artifacts, which include components
and facilities needed by the power system operator to make changes in the power system
configuration opening or closing switchgear, relays to protect power system segments from
shortcircuits, overloads and other dangerous conditions, internal power sources to serve all
substation electricity requirements and other different components used to support the
substation performance in a safe and reliable manner.
Substation automation systems (SASs) are based on a lot of dedicated software stored in
pieces of hardware that belong to a set of substation secondary components. In a simple
approach, using more recent technology, SASs are composed mainly of three groups of
devices plus two Local Area Networks integrated as shown in Figure 1. The process devices
group includes analog/digital converters and actuator devices to make the transition between
SAS and high voltage equipment. The interface devices group covers a set of Intelligent
Electronic Devices (IEDs) that receive and process signals coming from high voltage
equipment. The application devices group includes all computers and other components
required to run control functionalities and to communicate with internal and external
subsystems.

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Figure1:(SIMPLECONFIGURATIONOFSAS)

2 MAINFUNCTIONSofSAS
The most important functions of a SAS are:

2.1 CONTROL:
Selecting, opening and closing circuit breakers and disconnectors.
Blocking and unblocking control commands.
Giving release information to circuit breakers and disconnectors for securing the
opening

2.2 MONITORING:
Showing substation configuration with position indication (open or closed) of circuit
breakers and disconnectors based on signals coming from their own position
 contacts.
Acquiring and process data coming from power transformers and other primary
equipment related to condition operation.
Displaying substation events including information regarding switchgear opening
and closing actions due to any external cause, such as the activation/operation of a
protective relay.

2.3 AlARMING:
Announcing to a substation operator all adverse conditions that may represent a risk
to substation integrity.
Preventing trouble with SAS operation.

2.4 MEASUREMENTS:
Acquiring and showing current values of electrical or other relevant parameters.
Giving indications of energy flows through substation primary equipment and
transmission lines.
Setting and monitoring of protective relays:
Allowing changes on operating parameters of protective relays.
Giving alarm signals when any undesirable condition may affect the right relay
performance.

2.5 VOLTAGEREGULATION:
Monitoring actual voltage value on the power system.
Changing the position of the tap changer of power transformers.
Giving alarms and signals and closing actions.

3 SYSTEMARCHTECTURE
The substation structure can be divided into four levels: process level, bay level and a
station level and network level
The process level forms the base, where the switchgear equipment is located. These are wired
to the Bay Control Units (BUC) which form the bay level.
The bay control unit performs (a) control in accordance with control commands from station
level control equipment and (b) monitoring for the bay. The data transferred consists either an
analog or binary input or output.
Human Machine Interface (HMI) device, a monitoring and maintenance tool for bay control
unit and data communication unit during commissioning or maintenance is placed at the bay
level. At the station level, which forms the brain of the system, is located the Station Control
Unit (SCU).
Between the bay level and station level is present a Data Communication Unit (DCU), which
serves as a communication interface between station level and bay level units.

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Figure2:(STATIONSTRUCTURE)

4 SUBSTATIONCONTROLSYSTEMS
By coupling the Bay Control Unit (BCU) and RTU system to Local HMI facilities, data
links to system IEDs, and communication links to remote EMS or DMS Control Centers we
can provide elegant Substation Control Systems providing full system information, both
current and historic, simultaneously to all of the interested parties.

5 STATIONLEVELSTRUCTURE
It consists of the following devices:
Switches (All bay level devices (IEDs and BCUs) are conneted to switches via fiber
optic or Ethernet cables where all data can be transferred from bay level to servers or
vice versa )
Servers perform all control functions and store data through high capability
processing unit.
Time synchronization media (GPS) is required to ensure that substation devices have
accurate clocks for system control and data acquisition, etc.
HMI (operating station) : Display alarms and system status and control action to the
process level can be performed
Gate way to communicate with remote control centers.
6 INTRODUCTIONTOIEC61850
Today, IEC 61850 is a standard for the design of electrical substation automation and it
has been defined in cooperation with manufacturers and users to create a uniform, future-
proof basis for the protection, communication and control of substations. IEC 61850 meets
the requirements for an integrated Information Management, providing the user with
consistent Knowledge of the System on-line rather than just Gigabytes of raw data values.
IEC 61850 defines standardized Information Models across vendors and a comprehensive
configuration standard (SCL System Configuration Language).

Based on the function of SAS, we shall provide in the next section 7 the SAS signal list

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7 SASSIGNALLIST

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