Engineering and Condition monitoring in Digital Substation.

Digital Substation based on the standard IEC 61850 Process Bus is rather new in Norway. In today's solution, information and measurements to and from primary equipment is digitalizes in the control room. In a Digital Substation the information from control and protection unit from different vendors communicate with the primary equipment via few fibre optic cables instead of a large number of copper wires. All information will be exchange as a stream of data packets. This means that the digitalization will be move close to the primary equipment. Firstly, the project seeks to increase utilization of Digital Substation by expanding (Statnett) and implementing (Elvia and Lede) four live pilots and enable a verification of the maturity of the technology. In 2020 Tensio TN and BKK Nett joined the project with their digital substations, which added additional competence to the project! Secondly, the project has built a platform in the National Smart Grid Laboratory, for investigating different aspects of IEC 61850, including interoperability and cybersecurity. Thirdly, the project aims to increase competence in digital substation of the transmission and distribution system operators in Norway. The most critical challenges are: - To investigate limitations of Digital Substation, for example related to energy metering and data integration and sharing - Implement useful real-time monitoring functionalities and sensors - Investigate good practice to implement these monitoring applications in a real-time environment - Chose the optimal architecture for the process bus Findings from the project lay the foundation for increasing values of the Digital Substation, by implementing real-time functionalities for condition monitoring, and facilitate an effective deployment of Digital Substations in Norway. Experience from the project will also be utilized in specification and engineering phase of the future design of Digital Substation. Testing of digital substations has become an important topic, both testing of new stations and testing during the lifetime (maintenance testing) of the substations. In addition, energy metering has become one of the factors slowing down the utilization of Digital Substation, hence the projects want to contribute to finding good solutions. The project arranged a workshop on the subject in 2021, see information here: https://blog.sintef.com/sintefenergy/metering-in-digital-substations-new-solutions-for-a-new-era/A roadmap for digital substations, made in the project is shown here: https://blogg.sintef.no/sintefenergy-nb/veikart-for-digitale-transformatorstasjoner-i-norge. Cooperation with other relevant projects is important and we cooperate i.e. with the projects Prodig and Cybwin.

Digital Substation (DS) based on the standard IEC 61850 is rather new in Norway; one of the few pilot projects is Furuset substation owned by Statnett. Digital Substation is a substation where intelligent electronic devices from different vendors can easily communicate to each other based on IEC 61850 and most of hardwired copper connections are replaced by optical fiber cables. In Digital Substations, sampled values are instantaneous values of analogue signals (voltage, current, etc.) are sampled and digitalised. Currently, these values are not fully utilised since they are only used as inputs for protective relays although they are also valuable inputs for other functionalities. Firstly, the project seeks to increase utilization of Digital Substation by demonstrating in three pilots (Statnett, Hafslund and Skagerak) possibility to utilise sampled values to implement additional functionalities in real time. Secondly, it aims at building a platform in the laboratory environment for investigating different aspects of IEC 61850, including interoperability and cybersecurity. Thirdly, the project aims to increase competence in digital substation of the transmission and distribution system operators in Norway. The most critical challenges are: i) how to exploit opportunities and recognise limitations of Digital Substation for system operators, ii) how to identify useful real-time monitoring functionalities and IEC 61850-compliant sensors and their benefits, and iii) how to find a good practice to implement these monitoring applications, with affordable cost, in a real-time environment where there are constraints on climate conditions, computing capability of real-time simulators, network security, etc. Findings from the project lay the foundation for increasing values of the Digital Substation, implementing real-time functionalities for condition monitoring, and facilitate an effective deployment of Digital Substations in Norway.