This leading-edge approach has been proven by Electrocon’s customer Red Eléctrica de España in Madrid, Spain. REE’s experience is documented in their 2007 Western Protective Relay Conference Technical Paper, “Protection Coordination in the Transmission System and Boundaries – A Wide Area Coordination Study.” The paper details the process and benefits of automating the execution of the required studies and reporting, and is available from Electrocon International.
The new methodology uses the existing network model as a basis to verify coordination among backup protection devices throughout a high-voltage transmission system. Studies may involve many different types of operating conditions and potential network outages. The variety of conditions, faults, and protective devices which may need to be studied are one of the factors that has made this type of study impractical using manual techniques. Using a sophisticated macro to effectively supervise and conduct the entire study, the process results in a high-level summary report (one line of text per fault condition). The summary report simplifies the essential human work of analyzing the results of the study.
Potential applications of this methodology are not limited to utilities who already have their network modeled using Electrocon’s CAPE software. Almost any network data in electronic format, when updated and supplemented with protection data under this project, allows the automation of the entire coordination review and reporting process.
Benefits of this approach over traditional methods:
• Confident delivery dates. Using traditional manual techniques, internal staff or outside consulting firms could not be expected to conduct this type of study in a predictable time period without very high staffing levels and costs. Under automation, an appealing delivery date can be assured.
• Lower cost. Traditionally, the labor-intensive portions of the project are the fault studies, coordination evaluation, and preparation of the reports. Attempted manually, this type of project can require so much time and expense that it has been dismissed as impractical. The automated approach changes everything.
• Accurate. By automating the study, introduction of human mistakes through oversight or fatigue is prevented, no matter how large the scope of the study.
• Re-usable. If the utility has CAPE, its protection engineers can re-use the delivered techniques to repeat the review of selected or large areas as the system evolves.
