Investigation and design of an integrated monitoring, protection, and control system of a power reticulation network

Abstract

As far as substation automation systems are concerned, one of the prime requirements of most utilities today is the interoperability between Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) of different manufacturers. The standard IEC 61850 - Communication Networks and Systems in Substations - allows such interoperability between IEDs for protection and automation of substations. Presently, many manufacturers have implemented, or are in the process of implementing this standard in their IEDs. This has encouraged some utilities to specify IEC is to ensure that both system requirements are met and the features and benefits of the standard are fully exploited. The author of this thesis investigated and brought forward the design of an integrated monitoring protection and control system of a network in Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) campus based of the IEC 61850 standard. A method of testing the physical IED based on Hardware-In-Loop (HIL) configuration with the Real-Time Digital Simulator (RTDS) is developed and implemented. Mapping of IED Substation Configuration Language (SCL) with that of the RTDS GTNET cards is discussed and implemented to further exploit the use of realtime testing with Generic Object Oriented Substation Event messages (GOOSE). The thesis highlight the benefits of interconnecting the reticulation IEDs into a standardised communication network for protection, control and monitoring of each substation event. This improves the access to information and reduces maintenance cost on the reticulation network.