Sheffield Substation SCADA upgrade
Client: Transend Networks
Location: Sheffield, Tasmania, Australia
Date: September 2010 – September 2012
Upgrading a SCADA system to minimise the loss of substation visibility and control at an important regional electricity substation.
Background
Sheffield Substation is the major supply point for the north-west area of Tasmania and is also one of the most important substations for the bulk transfer of power between the west coast, north-west and northern areas. The Sheffield Substation’s SCADA system required upgrading as the station’s primary and secondary assets were planned to be upgraded in the future. The existing SCADA system required excessive outage times when being modified to incorporate new equipment.
Solution
Entura designed a distributed substation automation system concept. Once approved, a detailed design with automation equipment configurations was created for implementation. The substation automation system was progressively installed by Entura into the live substation in stages, to minimise SCADA downtime.
The project included system design, configuration, implementation, procurement, delivery, installation, factory acceptance testing, site acceptance testing and commissioning.
The new distributed substation automation system was integrated to the existing SCADA and protection system with redundancy through networks/Gateway RTUs. New RTU bay controllers were designed, configured, installed and commissioned for various areas in the station. WAN access for remote engineering access was incorporated to protection and control devices. The existing substation UCA2 (GOOSE) interlocking was migrated onto the new secondary system substation LAN.
As this upgrade interfaced to secondary equipment of varying ages, Entura drew on its many years of experience interfacing SCADA and automation equipment to a variety of new and legacy devices to resolve all interfacing and interoperability issues.
Outcome
The SCADA system upgrade significantly reduced SCADA downtime, minimising the impact on substation operations, energy market data and system expansion. Entura’s experience with greenfield and brownfield SCADA/automation upgrades, SCADA protocols, best practices and varied equipment interfaces enabled the successful provision of an automation system that could interface to all new and existing equipment without any impact to the operational system.
The implementation of remote engineering access reduced the client’s operational costs by eliminating the need to travel to the substation to interrogate secondary system equipment after power system events. The SCADA system’s self-monitoring capability and performance improved the network operator’s ability to diagnose equipment failure and make decisions about power system events.
