A Fully Integrated Substation LAN Network for Protection, Control and Data Acquisition

The employment of microprocessor technology, digital signal processing technology, and fiber optic communications technology into substations has led to a new era of integrated substation protection, control and data acquisition. Today, all utilities and manufacturers recognize the desire and the need to merge the communications capabilities of all IEDs in a substation, or even across the entire power network. This wide-area interconnection can provide not only data gathering and setting capability, but also remote control. Furthermore, multiple IEDs can share data and control commands at high speed to perform new distributed protection, control, and automation functions. This paper describes a new system, a station LAN based communication network, developed at Hydro One to integrate the protection, control and data acquisition functions at transmission and distribution substations. The system has been successfully operating in the Ontario transmission system. In addition, this paper proposes a station LAN and process LAN based two-LAN network. Furthermore, a fully integrated substation LAN network has been proposed. A new concept, "smart equipment", has been developed as well.