Anyone considering digital conversion of their substations or those well down the path of implementation will find a suite of substation automation tools offered by ABB to be of great assistance. ABB’s software solutions enable the straightforward configuration, integration, testing and management of multi-vendor, IEC 61850-based substation automation systems.
Back in April of this year the Newton-Evans Research Company reported on research concerning plans by domestic and international utilities to convert to full digital substations. The survey found that 34% of respondents from the U.S. and Canada expected to be implementing full digital substations by the end of 2018. Thirty-seven percent indicated they were not yet there. Also, larger utilities made up a greater percentage of the respondents indicating that they were not as far along. This is not too surprising since it is a major undertaking and a significant investment to go all digital. The good news is conversion can be performed incrementally as time and money allow. Furthermore, it makes sense to go incremental because each substation component converted and integrated into a digital communication system, increases functionality and provides other benefits such as continuous diagnostic capabilities and increased safety.
ABB’s suite of substation automation tools, which can help simplify the conversion to digital components, consists of three tools, all available on-line for down loading. The first is the Integrated Engineering Tool IET600 which provides a user friendly, flexible and consistent approach to substation automation system engineering. It allows engineers to design and configure the system-wide IEC 61850 communication dataflow between IEDs using graphical interfaces to design the substation topology and the physical communication infrastructure. The tool performs consistency checks, which reduces errors not only during the initial system engineering, but also during the integration, testing and commissioning phase. Designs created are documented in an IEC 61850 standard-compliant and reusable SCD file, allowing an efficient and consistent multi-vendor system integration.
The second tool is PCM600 which is designed to perform application configuration and communication engineering for all of the protection and control IEDs in an automated system. An intuitive user interface offers configuration capabilities for I/O mapping and signal mapping. The user can design the IEC 61850 communication between bay and station levels and bay-to-bay GOOSE messaging for station-wide interlocking and control of parallel transformers. The PCM600 tool also allows the user to monitor measurements and signal statuses. It will scan and retrieve disturbance information for automatic report file generation and automatically send the report to pre-defined e-mail addresses to facilitate fast corrective actions.
The last tool in this series is the integrated testing tool ITT600 which is designed for comprehensive diagnosis and troubleshooting of IEC 61850 compliant substation automation systems and applications. It features user friendly navigation, comprehensive presentation of application data and support for consistency checks, both on and off-line. The tool allows the exploration of the IEC 61850 configuration in any protection and control IED, the visualization of GOOSE messages and the communication simulation of an IED. ITT600’s versatility eliminates the need for multiple testing tools and allows efficient diagnosis and troubleshooting of substation automation applications to significantly reduce testing and commissioning time.
You can find more information on ABB’s tools and other services related to substation automation at the following address: http://new.abb.com/substation-automation/products/tools.
