Protective Relay Upgrade Utilizing Real-Time Simulator Technology

Turnarounds have proven hard and costly to execute. Efforts made to decouple production units have led to smaller and shorter shutdowns, resulting in longer time between power system outages. This has limited the ability to maintain and upgrade electrical infrastructure and forced some of the work to be completed on the run. This paper will cover an application of Real-Time Simulator (RTS) technology for the development, testing, training, and execution of 5kV main-tie- main Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) replacement on-the- run in a large industrial facility. During the upgrade process, a gateway was built and tested to bridge legacy communication protocol with IEC 61850. We will illustrate how the technology enabled the project team to gain support from the Operations & Maintenance teams and how it was used to minimize field execution time by thoroughly testing and proving design robustness prior to any field work.