Introduction to Substation

Automation
Concept of Electrical Substations
Leicester Square, London

Indoor substation under Leicester Square, London

 Indoor substation,
New York

Indoor substation ,
Japan
 Node functionality

Substations are considered to be the nodes in the electrical network, which

connect the lines and cables for transmission and distribution of electric
power and contains equipment that make possible to change the network
configuration of the power system in order to control and route the power
flow, in addition to voltage level transformation.
The electrical node in the substation is the busbar.
Substation layout
• The switchgear in the substations and the interconnecting
transmission and distribution lines are the highly valued assets of
the power system.
• Faults and failures do not only degrade the devices but also cause
losses in power delivery.
• Thus, the efficient supervision and control of these devices is of
extreme importance
The Role of Power Network Management

The Power Network Management System

 Tasks of Power network management system
• Controls the balance between production and consumption of power
• Controls the path of the power flow taking into account economical and
other criteria.
• Manages the power system and assures the availability and quality of the
electric energy.
• Exchanges business-related data with the business information and trade
system of the utility concerned.

 Thus, the power network management system has to acquire all the data
like voltage, current, power flow, and the status of all links of the entire
power system.
 In addition, it has to control all the switchgear installed in the numerous
substations. This task is called supervisory control and data acquisition
(SCADA).
 Substation Automation System
Definitions:

Automation
Is the use of control systems, in concert with other applications of
information technology, to control industrial machinery and
processes, reducing the need for human intervention.

Substation Automation
Deployment of substation and feeder operating functions and
applications in order to optimize the power network management
with minimal human intervention.
This is accomplished by obtaining real-time information from the
substation, having powerful local and remote control applications
and advanced electrical protection. The core ingredients of a
Substation Automation system are local intelligence, data
communication, control and monitoring.
Benefits of Substation Automation

Both the requirements and the major benefits of SA systems are

• Minimizing the number of outages and outage times
• Decreasing the operating costs
• Increasing the productivity
• Improving the power system performance
Primary equipment in substations
 Busbar

A busbar system is a set of three electric conductors of very low

impedance that serves as a common connection for individual power
lines, power transformers, etc
Indoor busbar
Circuit breaker

A mechanical switching device, capable of making, carrying and

breaking currents under normal circuit conditions and also making,
carrying for a specified time and breaking currents under specified
abnormal circuit conditions such as those of shortcircuit.
Indoor circuit breaker
Disconnector

A mechanical switching device which provides, in the open position, an

isolating distance in accordance with the specified requirements.
A disconnector is intended to open or close a circuit under negligible current
conditions or when there is non significant voltage change cross the
terminals of each of its poles. It is capable of carrying rated current under
normal conditions and short circuit through currents for a specified time.
Earthing switch

A mechanical switching device for earthing parts of a circuit, capable of

withstanding for a specified period current under abnormal conditions such
as those of a short circuit, but not required to carry current under normal
circuit conditions. An earthing switch may have a short circuit making
capacity either to act as a ‘fault thrower’ at the end, say, of a long
distribution feeder or to cater for inadvertent operation of a live circuit to
earth.
 Instrument transformers

The main tasks of instrument transformers are

• To transform currents or voltages from a usually high value to a
value easy to handle for relays and instruments.
• To insulate the relays, metering and instruments from the primary
high voltage system.
CT

The Current Transformer

Primary winding is incorporated in the HV line and carries the current flowing in
the network. It has various secondary cores for protection and metering.
VT

• Inductive voltage transformers are transformers of low output with which the
voltage is proportional to and in phase with the primary voltage.
• They are used to transform the HV to be measured to a secondary voltage
to be fed to measuring and protection devices.
 Surge arrester

• Used for protection of important equipment against over voltage, particularly

transformers, from atmospheric over voltages due to lightning and switching
over voltages.
 Power transformer

Power transformers provide the interface between the various voltage levels
within power networks.
 Power transformer

Tap changers

• Tap changers which effectively change the turns ratio of transformers are
one of the main methods of controlling voltage levels to the required limits.
• They are usually provided on the high-tension windings to raise or lower the
output voltage.
• In most networks on-load tap changers with Automatic Voltage Regulator
(AVR) are provided at substations.
A typical transformer bay in a substation
Capacitor bank
Shunt reactor
Substation switchgear can be:

• air-insulated
• Gas insulated GIS (SF6)
• Or a combination of both
Common circuit configurations
 Substation Bays

A substation bay is a part of a substation containing extra-high (or

high) voltage switching devices and connections of a power line, a
power transformer, etc., to the substation busbar system(s) as well
as protection, control, and measurement devices for the power line,
the power transformer, etc
Line bay

a bay used to connect a power line to the busbar system

Transformer bay

used for connecting a power transformer to the busbar system

Generator bay
Instrument transformers connection
 Auxiliary circuits and equipment

• Auxiliary circuits are electrical circuits of Low Voltage

usually taken from auxiliary transformer. These circuits
contain measurement, signalling, control and protection
devices.
 Protective relay

Is a device , which operates to disconnect a faulty part of the

system based on pre-set parameters.

• Conventional type : electromechanical relay

• Modern type : processor based relay
 The Relay – Circuit Breaker Combination

• The relay receives information regarding the network mainly from the
instrument transformers (voltage and current transformers),

• Detects an abnormal condition by comparing this information to pre-set

values,

• And gives a tripping command to the circuit-breaker when such an

abnormal condition has been detected.

• The relay may also be operated by an external tripping signal, either from
other instruments, from a SCADA master, or by human intervention.
The Relay – Circuit Breaker Combination
 RTU
• Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) is an industrial
grade Micro computer with special equipment at
one end (to interface with the communication link)
and at the other end (to interface with the field
devices).Known also as the Remote Computer
which is located in the substation as a lower level
of the SCADA system.
• It gathers information from field devices, time-
stamps it, buffers it & makes it ready for the
SCADA master to take it, or sends to SCADA
master depending on the protocol. It also
receives the commands from the MTU and
directs it to the right device.
 Control
center

RTU
 Conventional substation control

• Electromechanical relays for protection

• Analog meters
• Indication lamps for status of switches
• The RTU in the figure contains a number of cards for digital inputs,
digital outputs and analog inputs where all the substation signals are
directly connected.
Measurement used to be taken from CTs directly to the RTU. This
has required the use of many expensive transducers in the RTU
cabinet to manipulate the analog values before they get to the
analog input module of the RTU
 Numerous wires must be connected from different components
to RTU.
As substation complexity increases (e.g. expansion) , so does
the complexity of the wiring,
 Increasing costs
 Proving difficult to troubleshoot in the event of a fault
It may be difficult to connect all the wires to the controller simply
because of the physical size of the connectors
Intelligent Electronic Device
IED
Intelligent Electronic Device (IED) is a term used
in the electric power industry to describe
microprocessor-based controllers of power
system equipment.

IEDs receive data from sensors and power

equipment, and can issue control commands,
such as tripping circuit breakers if they sense
voltage, current, or frequency anomalies, or
raise/lower voltage levels in order to maintain
the desired level.
 Types of IEDs

Common types of IEDs include

• Protective relaying devices

• Circuit breaker controllers
• Capacitor bank switches
• Load tap changer controllers
• Automatic voltage regulators, etc.
Benefits of introducing IEDs to electrical substations:

• Automation of actions which have been previously done by

operators with an easier design of complex logic by software,
instead of the conventional hard wired electro mechanical logic
• All the additional opportunities and services, which can be provided
if all the information is available in digital format and shared between
IEDs.
• The accessibility of the data stored in any IED from anywhere to
improve the overall technical and economical management of the
power system.
• Considerable reduction in cable wiring and installation.
IED as a protection relay

• Protection relays being manufactured these days are primarily IEDs. This is
because; with the available microprocessor technology a single unit can
perform several protective functions. Whereas before the microprocessor
technology a single unit would contain only one protection function, if
several protection functions were required one would have to combine a
number of different units of protection relay.

• A typical IED can contain around 5-12 protection functions, 5-8 control
functions controlling separate devices, an auto-reclose function, self
monitoring function, addressing communication functions etc. Hence, they
are aptly named as Intelligent Electronic Devices.
 Bay Control Unit
BCU

Control and measuring IEDs designed to be used as cubicle-oriented

remote control interface units in switchgear. Theses units allow
control signals for the circuit breakers, binary signals from the
switchgear and analog signals from transducers and measuring
transformers to be transmitted to the substation level system and
further to the remote control system.

Many types of IEDs contain protection and control functions, they

can work as bay protection units (relay) or bay control units BCU
.
• In some configurations, e.g. EHV substations, the protection and
control functions are required by the utilities to be totally separated
• In other configurations, protection and control of each bay are
combined in one IED, e.g. MV substations
The RTU connections on the left figure demonstrate how IED technology
has reduced the amount of wiring needed to interface RTU with substation
components compared to conventional wiring with the RTU to the right.
Gateway

A network device equipped for interfacing with another network that

uses different protocols.
Can be used to directly connecting substation’s IEDs to the network
control center without the use of RTU
 RTU Vs. Gateway
RTU is a computer by itself. Before IEDs, RTUs used to perform some
substation automation tasks as they were directly wired with
metering, protection and control equipment. The tasks were logically
programmed in the RTU which acts upon receiving information from
different bays by sending commands to the tripping coils, electro
mechanical relays, and tap changer controls in a station wide
coordinated scheme.

However, by introducing IEDs that can effectively communicate with

each other to perform various kinds of coordinated actions in
addition to time-stamp the events, new trends have suggested
replacing RTUs with networking gateways which only act as a
communication interface between IEDs and control center.
Choices for utilities regarding RTUs role in substation automation are
to:

a) Integrate RTU with IEDs

b) Integrate RTU as another substation lED
c) Retire RTU and use IEDs only
a) Integrate RTU with IEDs

Control
Center

RTU

IED
b) Integrate RTU as another substation lED

Control
Center

Gateway

RTU

IED
c) Retire RTU and use IEDs only

Control
Center

Gateway

IED
a) Integrate RTU with IEDs

 The main control center communicates with substation’s RTU

 Currently the most applied configuration
Pros
• The system in control center deals only with one device (RTU) per
substation reducing the processing over head on the system

Cons
• Expensive equipment
• Two protocols to be implemented on RTU ( slave protocol to communicate
with control center and master protocol to talk to IEDs)
• Time delay ( information buffered in RTU and waited for SCADA master to
poll it)
b) Integrate RTU as another
substation lED

 RTU functions as another IED in the substation to perform some tasks

 Communication to the control center is performed by a gateway instead of
the RTU

Pros
• Faster data transmission between substation and control center
• Utilization of the existing RTU

Cons
• High control center overhead (system deals with each IED as an
independent substation)
• High cost of control center software and hardware cost
 c) Retire RTU and use IEDs only

 Control center directly accesses the IEDs via a gateway

 No RTU is used
Pros
• New trend in substation automation
• Faster data transmission between substation and control center
• Lower cost of substation automation due to excluding the RTU
Cons
• High control center overhead (system deals with each IED as an
independent substation that has to be assigned an independent channel)
• High cost of control center software and hardware cost
• RTU in a substation can work as a data concentrator for distribution’s
medium and low voltage automation equipment. This facility may be lost
when excluding RTUs from substations.
• Reliability of communication between IEDs in addition to
their built-in capabilities enabled new substation
automation facilities and functions to be developed.