Kansas City Board of Public Utilities to use QEI Gateways for Substation Modernization Program

QEI Inc. has been contracted to supply its STN 9150 node controllers for the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities substation modernization program. This project, when completed, will encompass 33 distribution substations serving over 65,000 electrical users in Wyandotte and Johnson Counties of Kansas.

The STN 9150 Substation gateways will be provided in an upgrade configuration, complete with custom, plug compatible, adapter cables to seamlessly replace legacy RTUs and preserve the maximum amount of existing wiring and instrumentation. In addition to inputs for thousands of existing hardwired status, analog and control points, interrogation ports for substation intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) will be provided at these locations throughout a 127-square-mile dispatch area.

The STN 9150 substation gateways will support the existing serial legacy communications hardware and protocols plus provide KCBPU the means to securely bring the substation automation program into their larger TCP/IP based enterprise network. In addition to providing substation data concentration, the QEI gateways will also provide the tools for NERC-CIP compliance through the QEI Config-Wiz Security Manager Module, DNP3 object encryption, security event log capture and a flexible, multi- level, user access procedure.

Using the open, industry standard, DNP3 protocol for both SCADA master station and IED communications, the node controllers will also serve to provide data time stamp synchronization to this widely distributed collection of remote locations. While the real time dispatch data is available through the existing KCBPU SCADA master station (as well as through convenient web-based access), remote re-configuration and engineering data download is also available through separate access channels. These multiple data paths can all operate securely, independently and simultaneously.

Founded in 1909, the Kansas City Board of Public utilities is a generation, transmission and distribution utility serving the electric and water need of over 116,000 residences and commercial/industrial users in the Kansas City, Kansas area.