Novel protection & control architecture based on virtual devices in digital substation

In order to improve hardware utilization, a novel Protection & Control Architecture based on virtual devices in digital substation is proposed in this paper. An “all-in-one” monitoring and control device is developed to support new architecture. Based on a Cloud Computing platform, the protection and control functions are built as virtual devices. Based on virtual protection & control, the functional configuration and coordination are described for different applications. Extensive studies show that the proposed protection and control based on virtual devices is able to offer significant advantages over the existing devices, such as the reliability improvement and cost reduction.