Centralized Protection and Control: Alternative Digital Application for Advanced Relay Protection System - A Proven Case Study

This paper describes the criticality of managing electrical protection system data and parameters digitally, the efforts in digitalizing electrical protection system in oil & gas industry, the collaborations involved in realizing the efforts, best practices from a proven case study as well as some recommendations proposed to improve current ways of managing, monitoring and controlling electrical protection system to enhance operational day to day activities towards digital substation journey. Centralized Protection and Control or CPC, as the name suggests, provides the concept of centralizing and relocating electrical protection parameters, data, settings, and such into a centralized- individual location to ease operation or users to monitor and operate the system. The concept of CPC is introduced many years back. This is due to the demand and needs to ease and simplify the operation of electrical system. Centralized protection and control play a pivotal role in ensuring the reliability of electrical system is enhanced which encompass technology applications, methodologies, and protocols designed to safeguard assets, manage operations efficiently, and mitigate risks within small or complex networks. With the intent to move away from hardware and adopting the advanced technology of software into relay protection function, as a result, CPC has been accepted and applied in industry and potential in providing solutions and solving operational pain points.