Upgrading reliable sensor technology with a modern IEC 61850 process bus

The Australian electricity transmission company Powerlink Queensland owns and operates Queensland’s high voltage electricity transmission network. In this digital substation project, Hitachi Energy drew on its extensive experience with non-conventional instrument transformers (NCITs) to replace the originally installed proprietary process bus with IEC 61850 technology and connected the primary (high-voltage) equipment to the substation protection and control devices more effectively, improvig the reliability and availability of the optimized substations.

In 2011 the first commercial process bus installation, the so called digital substation, was successfully put into operation. This first digital substation outside of China was only the first of a series of six outdoor substations with process bus and NCIT technology. The second and the third substations were put in service in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

In this project, Powerlink Queensland makes use of the SAS600 station automation system from Hitachi Energy, Relion^® 670 series protection and control IEDs and the REB500 distributed busbar and breaker failure protection system.

All protection and control equipment in the system are connected to the IEC 61850-9-2 process bus and receive analog sampled values from the CP-MU merging units also supplied by Hitachi Energy. New sensor electronics connect the MUs to the existing combined current and voltage sensors. This approach allowed the refurbishment of the primary technology to be kept to a minimum.

Thanks to the integrated redundancy of the NCITs from Hitachi Energy, two completely independent systems of merging units and protection equipment were implemented to meet the customer’s redundancy requirements.

The replacement of copper wires by fiber optic cables and the description of the transferred information according to IEC 61850 opened new opportunities for intelligent testing tools to support the commissioning and maintenance of the substation. 

Additional experience in digital substation

In addition to the described projects, Hitachi Energy installed several pilot installations to prove further products from Hitachi Energy‘s digital substation offering, like FOCS, the optical current transformer and to help customers gain experience with this technology.

The modernization of the installations with the latest technology in accordance to IEC 61850 supports Powerlink Queensland in its mission to responsibly deliver electricity transmission services that are valued by shareholders, consumers, customers and the market.

Safety

• The modernization of the installations with the latest technology in accordance to IEC 61850 supports Powerlink Queensland in its mission to responsibly deliver electricity transmission services that are valued by shareholders, consumers, customers and the market.

Compliance

• These deliveries bring Loganlea Substation into full compliance with the most advanced global standard for substation automation, maximizing availability and grid reliability.

Future-proof investment

• With demand for electricity growing fast, Queensland needed to further build on long-term, cost effective solutions for its power system. By upgrading the substation with advanced automation and the latest communications standards, Hitachi Energy helped Powerlink to fulfill its strategy well into the future.