Major Components for Improving Power Distribution Reliability
by the 3 Phase Associates "TEAM"
Electric power has evolved from a simple need to a major necessity. Everyday we rely more and more on electricity to do just about everything. When the lights go out, its not just a major inconvenience, but a catastrophe in some cases. A major focus for power distribution utilities is to deliver reliable power to its customers safely and at the lowest possible cost.
Newer state-of-the-art, digital devices are making it possible to achieve near perfect power reliability while offering more monitoring and control functionality of electric grids. Smarter grids are evolving with improved and faster automation systems, working in harmony with: IEDs, SCADA, FLISR, AMI, AMR, DMS, EMS, OMS, etc.
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Basics of Designing Power Substations
by Matt Cole
Power substations are the most integral part of a power utilities' electric system. Substations make up the various electric systems - power generation, transmission, and distribution systems. Power substations consist of power transformers, voltage/potential transformers, current transformers, electrical bus, foundations/structures, circuit breakers, switches, outdoor cabinets, control house, fencing, etc.
Many design aspects and processes go into engineering and designing a power substation from the ground up. This discusses the basic steps performed in planning and implementing a new substation.
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Is Your Legacy SCADA System Secure?
by Matt Cole
For the electric power industry and other service sectors, Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition (SCADA) has performed a crucial role by allowing better decision making through operating, controlling, monitoring and maintaining critical control systems.
With Smart Grid (SG) and Distributed Generation (DG) gaining more popularity results in more 3rd party stakeholders demanding access to utilities' SCADA system. Some utility SCADA systems are older legacy systems that are in dire need of replacing in order to have: a more secure system, access to the latest vendor security patch updates, and to allow for better functionality, etc.
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Importance of an Adequate Substation Ground Grid Design?
by the 3 Phase Associates "TEAM"
Designing substation ground mats is an important step in designing power substations. A proper grounding system is essential for human safety, especially during faulted conditions. For lower voltage panels and equipment, the NEC recommends maintaining a ground resistance of 25-ohms or less per NEC 250. With substations, the recommended ground grid resistance should be 5-ohms or less due to much higher voltages and increases in fault current, depending on substation size and voltage levels.
The main goal for a grounding system is to ensure that the path of least resistance for electrical current is not through personnel or equipment. A well-designed substation ground grid can uphold human safety for authorized personnel working in or around substations during faulted conditions. It is recommended to extend the substation ground grid outside the substation fencing for adequate protection.
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Distribution Utilities Now Affected by NERC CIP Regulations
by Matt Cole
As NERC CIP's regulations and standards continue to evolve with the recent approval of CIP-003-7, new compliance regulations will affect the low voltage distribution providers. Previous CIP standards were considered only for voltage suppliers delivering power at transmission level voltages (100kV and above).
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The Importance of Protection & Controls (P&C) and IEDs
by Matt Cole
Protection and Controls (P&C) engineering and design is extremely important in power grid protection and coordination especially with the use of intelligent electronic devices (IEDs). Proper P&C designs and coordination with protective relaying and IEDs is an essential part of electrical power engineering for protecting large expensive power equipment such as: generators, transformers, transmission lines (TLs), power circuit breakers, electrical bus, etc.
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3D CAD Modeling and Substation Design
by the 3 Phase Design Team
3D CAD Modeling and 3D CAD Design enhances the design characteristics in many ways while providing several benefits. Design efficiencies are improved where traditional 2D drawing representations can be easily achieved from a completed 3D design versus manually drawing each 2D representation in CAD. Being able to view equipment, components, and systems in three dimensional space allows almost endless possibilities towards planning, implementation, construction, and manufacturing efforts, which is extremely important in the electric power industry. 3D CAD Design and Modeling is improving and aiding with power substation designs compared with 2D designs ....
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A Basic Explanation Summary of How the Electric Power Grid Works
by Matt Cole
Many wonder exactly how the electric power grid works from generation to transmission to distribution and to the end users. There is more to electricity than simply turning on a light switch. Electric power has given us many conveniences and has improved our quality of life forever more, sometimes more than we can imagine. This provides a basic explanation of the electric power grid.
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Cybersecurity Considerations for Power Substation SCADA Systems Using IEC-61850 Communications
by Matt Cole & Others
When including security controls into a SCADA system design, it is sometimes difficult to separate design
goals from security requirements. The foremost goal for a SCADA system is to provide protection,
automation, and data acquisition. This paper discusses major
vulnerabilities and cybersecurity considerations that require proper analysis when designing and
implementing a secure IEC-61850 standard-based SCADA system within a power substation.
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