IEC 61850 process bus solution addressing business needs of today's utilities

There are a number of important considerations that must be taken into account when deploying any new technology solution within a power substation. These include not only technical factors such as performance, security and reliability but also significant business considerations like manageability, safety, staff training issues and overall installation cost versus payback. Often the sole justification considered for the installation of IEC 61850-9-2 process bus in substations is its necessity in order to use non-conventional instrument transformers. What is needed is the justification for this exciting technology that is able to address the present and future business needs of the utility as a whole. The cost used as a benchmark is often the cost of the individual components of these systems and not the overall total installed cost or overall lifecycle costs. Upon closer examination, it can be readily and repeatedly seen that at most utilities the primary source of cost is in the documentation, physical installation, termination and commissioning of thousands of individual copper connections. A primary business rationale for developing IEC 61850-9-2 process bus architectures must be the minimization of all of the costs associated with the installation, operation and maintenance of protection and control systems and the optimization of project execution and resource usage. This paper presents key drivers and expectations of today's utilities for the next generation protection and control systems. A practical architecture delivering both solid technical performance and substantial cost benefits to the user is presented, with cost savings and resource optimization illustrated with a simplified business case study.