SCADA

FOR

POWER SYSTEM PLANNING

Paper Presented by,

N.Gururajan
N.Hariharasudhan
III Year Electronics and Instrumentation Dept.
Velammal Engineering College.
Chennai-600066.

Contact E-Mail:

ngururajan_86@yahoo.com
 ABSTRACT

This paper describes “SCADA for Power System Planning” as one of the recent trends in
power system. The SCADA system is a great tool present today for the process of
planning. This paper starts with a basic introduction of “what is SCADA?”. The SCADA
system will be used in industry for the development of the supervision and control.

This paper describes elaborately about the architecture of a SCADA system implied in
substation for automation process. More attention is paid to the functionality of each and
every components of a SCADA system. The latest advancements in this SCADA system
is also given some importance in this paper and moreover common features of a SCADA
system is also discussed in this paper.

This paper also describes about the applications of SCADA in a substation. The SCADA
system controls various functions in the automation process. The control and protective
functions are discussed separately with neat tabular columns. This is the latest trend of
developing power system protection and control. Attention is also being paid to the
advancements of SCADA.

Some attention is also paid to the industrial standards to which they abide, their planned
evolution as well as the potential benefits of their use. In this paper we stress about the
vital role of a SCADA system in the field of power system. There is the necessity of
SCADA in engineering for the process of automation in any control system for a new
future to be evolved in this field
INTRODUCTION

In olden days the substation control was made manually. The operators find themselves
in a very difficult position to note the various parameters that are to be controlled. The
automation process is the one in which these functions are done simple and easy. Several
researches have been made to find a tool for automation process and finally they came
with the recent trend in power system known as “SCADA” (Supervisory Control And
Data Acquisition).

With recent revolution in the static relays, microelectronics, microprocessors and digital
computers, several functions of measurement instrumentation, data logging, supervision,
monitoring alarm control, protection and automation are integrated with the help of
SCADA system

Widely used in industry for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition of industrial
processes, SCADA systems are now also penetrating the experimental physics
laboratories for the controls of ancillary systems such as cooling, ventilation, power
distribution, etc. More recently they were also applied for the controls of smaller size
particles detectors such as the L3 muon detector and NA48 experiments, to name just two
examples at CERN.

SCADA systems have made substantial progress over the recent years in terms of
functionality, scalability, performance and openness such that they are an alternative to in
house development even for very demanding and complex control systems as those of
many power system requirements.
 WHAT IS SCADA?

SCADA stands for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. As the name indicates, it
is not a full control system, but rather focuses on the supervisory level. As such, it is a
purely software package that is positioned on top of hardware to which it is interfaced, in
general via Programmable Logic Controllers(PLCs), or other commercial hardware
modules.

SIMPLE SCADA SYSTEM WITH SINGLE COMPUTER

The above figure represents the simplest SCADA configuration employed in a

single computer. Computer receives data from RTU’s via the communication interface.
Operators control base one or more CRT terminals for display. With this terminal it is
possible to execute supervisory control commands and request the display of data in
alphanumerical formats arranged by geographical location and/of type.

The programming input/output is used for modifying the supervisory software. In

the basic SCADA system, all the programs and data is stored in the main memory. The
more sophisticated version of SCADA has additional auxiliary memories in the form of
magnetic disc units.

ARCHITECTURE AND FUNCTIONALITY:

SCADA systems are indispensable in the operation and control of interconnected

power systems. SCADA requires two-way communication channels between the Master
Control Centre and Remote Control Centre.

The SCADA systems are arranged to perform the following tasks.

• Data Collection (Data Acquisition)
• Data transmission (telemetry)
• Scanning, Indication, Monitoring, Logging.
• Execution of operating, commands: ON/OFF, RAISE/LOWER.
• Network supervision, alarms and report any uncommon change of state.
• Control and indication.
• Ensure sequential events.
• Data presentation, display, reporting.
 ARCHITECTURE OF SCADA

The data:

The data consists of electrical and mechanical variables, on/off states, analog quantities,
digital quantities, change of state, sequence of events, time of occurrence and several
other data which the control room operator would like to know.

Data collection (acquisition):

The data is acquired by means of a CTs VTs, transducers and other forms of collecting
information. The process to be supervised has a very large number of electrical and
mechanical and other data(information) transducers converts the data into electrical form
to enable easy measurement and transmission. Data originates in the main process and is
collected at the point of origin. Data may be collected at low level (5mA) or high
level(5V). The data amplified in signal amplifier and conditioned in data signal
conditioner.

Data transmission:

The data is transmitted from the process location to the control room and from the
control room to the control centre.

Data logging:

• Logging is typically performed on a cyclic basis, i.e.., once a certain file size, time
period or number of points is reached the data is overwritten. Logging of data can
be performed at a set frequency, or only initiated if the valued changes or when a
specific predefined event occurs. Logged data can be transferred to an archive
once the log is full. The logged data is in general performed together with either a
used ID or station ID. There is often also a VCR facility to playback archived
data.

The Data logging performs the following functions:

• Input scanning
• A/D conversion
• Display
• Signal amplification
• Recording
• Programming
Remote Terminal Units (RTU):

A typical modern SCADA system has a RTU. The function of RTU is to record and
check signals, measured values and meter readings, before transmitting them to control
station and in the opposite direction, to transmit commands, set point values and other
signals to the switchgear and actuators. The RTU is capable of performing the following
functions:
• Acquisition of information including features such as plausibility checks and
filtering.
• Output of commands/instruction, including their monitoring.
• Recognition of changes in single input state, plus time data allocation for sequential
recording of events by the master control station.
• Processing of information transmitted to and from the telecommunication equipment.
• Communication with master control stations.

Presentation (CRT display):

CRT is the short form for Cathode Ray tube. CRT display is made available in the
control room. CRT display provides the operator with the information about input
quantities whenever he wants. CRT display is located in the control room of a control
centre.

Two types of display are available:

• Tabulated values of parameters, measured values and computer characteristics.
• Graphical display representing status of equipment in the form of mimic diagrams.

Alarm handling:

The operator in control room receives on alarm in the form of audio visual indication.
The alarm indicates dangerous condition calling for supervisors immediate attention and
intervention, if necessary. The alarms are arranged for electrical/mechanical/other
parameters and are included in the configuration of data logger. The variables are
scanned at regular intervals. When the scanned values exceed certain limit, the alarm is
sounded.
APPLICATION:

Automatic substation control:

The application of SCADA system in a substation is discussed below. In every

substation certain supervision, control and protection functions are necessary. These
functions are installed in a control room. In a small independent substation, the
supervision and operation for normal service can be carried out by the operator with a aid
of analog and digital control system in the plants. Thus primary control in substation is
of two categories.
• Normal routine operation by operator commands.
• Automatic operation by action of protective relays and control systems.
SCADA AUTOMATION FOR SUBSTATION

Sub-station control functions arranged through SCADA system:

These include the following:

1. Alarm functions:

To sound alarm/annunciation regarding dangerous, and uncommon events such as

abnormal values of process parameters, fire, illegal entry in premises, over temperatures,
low voltages of auxiliary supply, unusual happening etc. Alarms are obtained from data
logger and are for alerting the operator in the control room.

2. Control and indication:

• Control of two position devices such as circuit breakers, isolators, earthing switches,
starters. Indication of ON/OFF state of the devices on control board/mimic
diagrams.
• Control of position of devices having position (closed, middle, open). Example
values, input settings, indication of position on control panel.
• Control positions of multiposition devices. Example tapchanger, indication of
position on control panels.
• Indication without control.
• Set point control to provide set point to a controller located at remote substation.

3. Data collection, recording, display.

4. Sequential operation of devices with predetermined time and condition for

operation of various devices.

• Autoreclosing of circuit breaker operation O-CO-Time-CO.

• Operation of circuit breaker, isolator and earthing switch in a particular sequence
during opening of circuit and other sequence during closing of circuit.

By means of SCADA system the operator in the control center can cause
operations in a remote substation. The possible remote operations include:

1. Opening and closing of switching devices.

2. Tapchanging of transformers (voltage control)

3. Switching of capacitor banks (voltage control).

4. Load shedding (load frequency control).

Some of the remote operations are made automatic by one_line computer based
system without human interventions. Example : network islanding, backup protection.

The automatic control functions are segregated into:

• Interconnection functions.
• Transmission line automatic function.
• Distribution system automatic function.

AUTOMATIC FUNCTION IN TRANSMISSION SUBSTATION WITH SCADA

SYSTEM:

Protective functions:

Sequential events
Backup protection
Auto reclosing
Line protection
Bus protection
Transformer protection
Fault distance reporting
Reactor protection

Control and monitoring functions:

Voltage control Var flow control

Load frequency control, load shedding, islanding
Automatic bus sectionalizing
Sequential events
Synchronizing checks
Monitoring
Sub-station transformer load monitoring
Power flow monitoring

AUTOMATIC FUNCTION IN DISTRIBUTION SUB-STATION WITH SCADA

SYSTEM:

Protective Function:

Under frequency protection

Earthfault protection
Conductor fail protection
Feeder protection and auto reclosing
Transformer protection
Breaker failure protection
Busbar protection
Backup protection

Control and Monitoring functions:

Feeder Sectionalizing
Feeder deployment switching
Voltage control, VAV control
Data collection, monitoring status, loading, display.

ADVANCEMENTS:
 SCADA vendors release one major version and one to two additional minor version once
per year. This products evolve thus very rapidly so as to take advantage of new market
opportunities, to meet new requirements of their customers and to take advantage of their
technologies.

As was already mentioned, most of the SCADA products that were evaluated
decomposes the process in “atomic” parameters to which a Tag-name is associated. This
is impractical in the case of very large processes when very large set of Tags need to be
configured. As the industrial application are increasing in size, new SCADA versions are
now being designed to handle devices and even entire systems as full entities (classes)
that encapsulate all their specific attributes and functionality. In addition, they will
support multi-team development.

As far as new technologies are concerned, the SCADA products are now adopting:

• Web technology, ActiveX, Java, etc.

• OPC as a means for communicating internally between the client and server modules. It
should thus be possible to connect OPC complaint third party modules to that SCADA
products.

CONCLUSION:

Thus this paper concludes that with the use of SCADA system the problems faced
by the operators in power system can be solved. Thus this paper gives the benefits one
can expect from adopting a SCADA system in electrical engineering can be summarized
as follows:
• A rich functionality, extensive control and supervision facilities.
• Reliability and robustness. These systems are used for mission critical industrial process
where reliability and performances paramount. In addition, specific development is
 performed with in an well-established control center that enhances reliability and
robustness.
• Technical support and maintenance are made easy in any power system process.
Thus the application of SCADA in electrical engineering results in reduction of
complexity for the operators to handle the electrical components. This paper concludes
that by using a SCADA for automation process we can reduce the complexity occurring
in the industrial processes.