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Biofuels: The Promise of the Next Generations

Feb 10 2010 - 1:00 PM Eastern - Your location

The second wave of biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol, algae and others bypass the food vs. fuel controversy and are on the cusp of commercialization. This webinar will review the latest developments in the advanced biofuel space with leading companies more...

Conducting a distributed chorus

Feb 17 2010 - 12:00 Eastern - Your City

Join Intelligent Utility managing editor Kate Rowland, along with a panel from PHI including Rob Stewart, manager of technology evaluation and implementation, and Todd McGregor, AMI director, for an interactive discussion about this company's work to build a more intelligent more...

21st Century T&D: Building the Transmission Piece of Smart Grid

Feb 18 2010 - 12:00 Eastern - Your City

Join industry leaders and Marty Rosenberg, Editor-in-Chief of EnergyBiz magazine, for an interactive discussion about the critical relationship between transmission and distribution (T&D) investment and smart grid success. As the energy enterprise gets smarter toward the consumer end with smart more...

Transforming the Electrical Grid: Addressing Transformation Strategies to Implementing A Smart Grid

Feb 25 2010 - 3:00-4:00pm Eastern - Your City

This webcast should be attended by those individuals that are responsible for identifying, planning and evaluating Smart Grid solutions, including those that empower and engage consumers and are easily assimilated with existing or new technology and business processes. more...

Smart Grid Revolution

Feb 18 2010 - Feb 19 2010 - AUSTIN, TX - USA

ACI's Smart Grid Revolution February 18-19, 2010 A two day strategic event bringing together utility professionals, government & state officials & consultants involved in deployment of the smart grid. To learn strategies which will improve energy efficiency programs & operations, more...

EnergyBiz Leadership Forum 2010: Energy's Emerging Architecture

Feb 28 2010 - Mar 2 2010 - Washington, DC

In 2009, a global economic meltdown collided with an energy crisis to turn the world on its ear. In the United States we've witnessed an unprecedented spending on energy resource development and infrastructure. As a result, a new energy architecture more...

CERAWeek 2010

Mar 8 2010 - Mar 12 2010 - Houston, TX - USA

CERAWeek, IHS CERA's 29th Executive Conference, is recognized as a leading forum offering insight into the energy future. Each year senior policymakers, energy and power executives, and financial and technology leaders from over 55 countries engage with CERA experts in more...

2nd Annual Thin Film Solar Summit Europe

Mar 17 2010 - Mar 18 2010 - Berlin Germany

The conference will provide a comprehensive analysis of the thin film industry and its key challenges in an interactive manner. Leading companies will share their experiences through panel debates and high-level presentations. A great opportunity to network with the whole more...

Gas and Electric Business Understanding Seminar

Feb 24 2010 - Feb 25 2010 - New York, NY - USA

Gas and Electric Business Understanding provides a comprehensive overview of the natural gas and electric industries. Position yourself for career success by gaining a solid understanding of how each business works, including key physical, market and regulatory aspects, as well more...

Gas Business Understanding Seminar

Mar 1 2010 - Mar 2 2010 - Houston, TX - USA

Gas Business Understanding provides a comprehensive overview of the natural gas industry. Position yourself for career advancement by gaining a solid understanding of how the gas business works including key physical, market, and regulatory aspects and how market participants navigate more...

Electric Business Understanding Seminar

Mar 3 2010 - Mar 4 2010 - Houston, TX - USA

Electric Business Understanding provides a comprehensive overview of the electric industry. Position yourself for career advancement by gaining a solid understanding of how the electric business works including key physical, market, and regulatory aspects and how market participants navigate this more...

Gas Market Dynamics Seminar

Mar 3 2010 - Mar 4 2010 - Houston, TX - USA

Gas Market Dynamics offers participants an in-depth understanding of North American natural gas markets and how they function. Enhance your career by furthering your knowledge of market structure, supply and demand, services offered in gas markets, and how various participants more...

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Substation Automation: What does the Intelligent Grid have to do with it?
3.3.09   William Pugh, Sr Product Manager, Silver Spring Networks

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    Automating Distribution Networks is not a new concept by any stretch of the imagination. For years, substations have had various levels of SCADA systems monitoring critical elements and reporting to a central operations center. Inside the substation, many communication protocols (Modbus,DNP3.0, IEC61850) and IP are prevalent; however, outside the substation, solutions are fraught with older, one-way pager systems and proprietary communications protocols. Automation has also existed to lesser degrees outside the substation on the circuits with the Cap Controllers, PLCs and RTUs being fitted with communications modules. Today and into the future, all of these legacy devices can be enabled to deliver the data/statistics back to SCADA systems with open standards based on an IP communication network. Imagine implementing Distribution Automation on all substation circuits using an open-standards, IP-based solution managed over a common infrastructure that is also used for AMI. Sounds far off, but it is available today.

    For several years there has been a clear line of demarcation between a utility's "Smart Meter" and distribution organizations (e.g., SCADA), especially when it comes to their communications network and how the data gets back to control central. There are several advantages to leveraging an AMI network to perform additional and/or layered applications, where SCADA can easily be leveraged. Let's first take a look at some of the advantages that can be achieved with a ubiquitous IP- based solution focused on Distribution Automation (DA).

    Making the move forward

    The performance criteria for DA are high: DA circuits are very latency sensitive and there is often not enough bandwidth; the typical speeds (9600baud) are not fast enough, and to date have had to rely on devices in the field that communicate status of the grid via proprietary protocols or solutions that have been crafted in the field that don't quite meet all of the requirements of SCADA unless there is a lot of lit fiber. With existing non-IP DA solutions, there are challenges with respect to driving solicited or unsolicited messages back to SCADA central including latency, proprietary low bandwidth, older technology, not to mention command and control of these devices becomes more trustworthy (because of the defensibly secure links). Utilizing an IP-based network that provides enough bandwidth and a robust routing protocol enables the messages to traverse the network very fast, resulting in greater control and sound results. IP-based DA solutions with at least 100kbps could indeed revolutionize the way DA networks will be deployed in the future.

    Where are we taking DA networks?

    As earlier stated, one of the prime issues with existing DA networks is that most are proprietary in nature. Several companies provide DA networking solutions; however, native IP and open standards are few and far between. Most existing DA networks provide transport capable products, but are challenged to deliver timely and useful information when a fault occurs. Requirements for data delivery when a fault occurs is often measured in seconds and deploying a system that truly supports this in a reliable fashion takes significant engineering effort and craftsmanship on the part of the utility. Unreliable performance of the DA networks today results in practices that burden the utility overall. Moving away from these older solutions and towards a technologically sound transport option enables the SCADA operators to take greater advantage of the information that can be provided in ways that will benefit the utility.

    Far too often, due to the lack of confidence that SCADA has in the communications network, utilities employ mechanisms to verify that links to the line devices are still reachable. Polling these end devices is one mechanism that is used today. Varying polling rates, from every five minutes to every 15 minutes, is not uncommon and is even more aggressive for some utilities. For most communications networks this presents a data flow problem that gets bottlenecked through the transport. Employing an IP-based network affords a utility the opportunity to think of doing business differently and taking advantage of data and statistics in a way that they have not been able to in the past. Exception-based reporting becomes more realistic; polling at a less frequent rate becomes a more palatable option because there is confidence that the communications network is available. Making the move to deploy an IP-based DA network will take time and further education, but will add far greater value than expected.

    There are many important criteria evaluating an IP-based DA solution:

    • Will the solution reduced the number of truck rolls to manage devices?

    • Is the solution true two-way communications that supports command and control?

    • Does the solution offer a feature rich routing protocol and full redundancy?

    • Is the solution capable of responding to outages faster with greater reliability than the existing system?

    • Does the solution as deployed offer improved SAIDI and CAIFI numbers?

    An IP-based DA solution with at least 100kbps and dynamic routing satisfies all of the above.

    What are the base level requirements?

    • The network needs to have enough bandwidth and speed to manage the latency requirements of DA, and if it is to be used along with AMI, must scale as applications are added.

    • Naturally the network needs to support open standards (DNP3, MODBUS, IEC61850) predicated on native IP.

    Where is the opportunity?

    The initial opportunity lies in supporting the future and the streamlining of networks that help manage the grid:

    • Removal of the legacy technologies that do not accommodate future growth or change by the utility. An IP-based communications network affords the SCADA operators the advantage of adding devices or move devices without having to spend unnecessary funds due to supplier lock in and proprietary protocols.

    • By employing an open, standards-based communications network, there is uniformity throughout the network. The ability to manage command and control remotely is truly enhanced through reduced service requests to physically visit the devices in the field and trusted delivery of statistics and data from the end device (Capacitor Bank Controllers and Switch reclosers for example).

    By using IP and tunneling the respective protocols, there is an added advantage to the utility since security can be wrapped around the transport without modifying the legacy hardware currently deployed. Naturally, this includes all legacy protocols.

    Making the Smart Grid Real -- DA+AMI

    The first thing to consider is cost benefit. This presents itself in the overall opportunity to use a common network infrastructure (one network running for multiple applications) that allows plug and play of various applications from multiple suppliers. The key ingredients are open standards and IP. There has been a history of segregated networks between SCADA and AMR, so an inherent paradigm shift is needed to enable true two-way communications, cost effectively and with the ability to accommodate future services and applications.

    Where are the savings?

    • The utility pays for an infrastructure once, thereby garnering the advantage of adding additional applications.

    • For the added applications, there is a single network and user interface for the network operators to learn as well as a single BOS.

    • Where the utility chooses to drive their DA traffic across the AMI network, they now have the option of selecting any number of OEM devices to integrate because the network is based on open standards and IP.

    • Legacy devices that are unable to report by exception can be enabled with an intelligent IP-based solution.

    All in all, supporting open standards within an IP-based network creates the potential for a multitude of applications to be managed and data to be presented, on one network. This is an opportunity to build out ubiquitous, high-speed, low-latency solutions that are the foundation for the Smart Grid.

    For information on purchasing reprints of this article, contact Tim Tobeck ttobeck@energycentral.com.
    Copyright 2010 CyberTech, Inc.
     
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    Readers Comments

    Date Comment
    Len Gould
    3.3.09
    Excellent discssion of te advantages of IP. I can see the SCADA net engineers cringeing at the mention of integrating with the AMR/AMI network, but it must come.

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