Substation Control System-present Practices and Future Trends

Developments in computer and communication technologies have enabled unmatched integration of a wide range of substation functions within a computer control system. This new class of application has gone through a great deal of effort into achieveing cost-effective, efficient, secure and high performance of the utility power grid substation operations. The integrated Substation Control System (SCS) became some years ago the technology of choice, which led to the installation of a 3-level hierarchical control system in Abu Dhabi substations. The first 2 levels of control are performed locally within the boundary of the substation, and the third level puts a larger number of substations under remote control from the Network Control Centre (NCC), which is separated in most cases from the individual substations by large distances. In the design of this serial link to NCC, the IEC 60870-5-101 standard has become the protocol of choice for field installation on Abu Dhabi system.