Survalent Technology, a leader in ADMS for utilities, is pleased to announce that it will work with Thales, a leading provider of Aerospace, Transportation, Defence and Security technology, to jointly develop enhanced solutions.
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Survalent will develop and integrate new functionality and enhancements to the Survalent ONETM ADMS platform, and its SCADA, Outage Management System (OMS) and Distribution Management System components, based on Thales’s technology. The development investment will advance Survalent’s strategy to help utilities modernize the grid and prepare for a distributed energy resources future. The Survalent ONETM product line will incorporate Thales’s critical information and cyber-security solutions to protect and to increase the resilience of critical information systems for utilities. Thales’s unique Big Data platform and multi-touch display technology is being integrated to the ADMS solution, to aid utility decision making and collaboration in the control room and field. Access to Big Data analytics will enable utility staff to analyze real-time social media data and to gain insight and awareness at the community level. Proven real-time collaboration and display technology will support control room decision making and increase shared situational awareness, during outages and crisis events.

Kate Barker, Energy News Wed, 11 Jun 2014

Horizon Energy is testing a system for detecting and isolating faults on its network to help increase reliability.

The fault detection isolation and restoration system (FDIR) was developed by Christchurch-based firm Quasar, which supplies and integrates Survalent Technology smart grid solutions.

Horizon asset manager Derek Caudwell says implementing the technology will reduce the impact of faults on customers. It will also position the company for possible regulatory changes around network performance.

“The regulator’s indicated in the next period that quality and incentive schemes are likely to come to the fore so it’s one of a number of things we’re doing to be in a position to respond to that, improve our customer responsiveness and also reliability of the network.”

Quasar project engineer Eric Tjiptadjaja says FDIR will be able to locate and isolate a fault immediately, and then either advise restoration steps to the operator or implement the restoration automatically.

It follows the same logic as an operator but can take in more information at once and process it more quickly, Caudwell says.

Horizon’s network spans around 8,400 square-kilometres and provides electricity to more than 24,000 consumers in the eastern Bay of Plenty.

Operation

Caudwell says the firm recently ran a three-year reliability programme and installed more than 50 automated switches on parts of the network were performance historically has been poor.

Once FDIR is fully implemented it will communicate with parts of the network that have the automated switches installed and gather information from there.

Caudwell says once the system has isolated a fault, it will look at other areas to determine whether they are faulted or not and restore on that basis.

It can also read how recently other devices have communicated, how reliable the information coming in from the field is, and quickly calculate load flows to find the optimal part of the network to restore from.

“You’ve still got to respond to the actual fault,” Caudwell says, “but it means those areas that can be restored quickly are, so less people are affected by the outage.”

The system is currently being tested on about 10 per cent of the network in a monitoring capacity. The pilot began in April and will likely run for 12 months, Caudwell says.

“When it sees a fault it will go through its routine and work how it would have responded to that particular fault, but it won’t actually undertake any switching at this stage,” he says. “We’re still gaining operational experience with the system.”

The FDIR is supported by Survalent Technology's open-architecture system, which includes several of the firm's open system applications.

He would not say how much has been spent on implementing the new system as it’s still in the pilot stage.

Long-term plan

Caudwell says technology take-up by distributors has been on the slow side compared with other industries, but that is changing.

“Process industries have been automating systems since the introduction of SCADA systems and computers.”

Implementing the FDIR system is part of a long-term plan Horizon has to better serve its consumers and take advantage of developments in technology.

Caudwell says the firm is in the process of developing an outages management system to better understand where faults occur on the network.

“Ultimately we’d like to have smart meters as part of that - telling us where customers are without supply - but because the of the nature of New Zealand’s regulatory environment and the fact that the meters are typically owned by the retailers it really requires some willpower and cooperation to make that happen.”

Horizon also recently deployed Smartrak – a system for monitoring and managing the dispatch of its staff in the field. Caudwell says the technology shows where field workers are in relation to the firm’s assets.

One of the newer applications from Survalent is SurvCentral which is designed for Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS) database access from your mobile device.

The mobile devices can run Apple iOS, Android, Windows and Blackberry operating systems. You can visualize your data points, lists and other tabular information, as well as your graphic displays on smartphones or tablets using any of the above OS platforms. SurvCentral provides users a great way to “see” the data of your ADMS applications while you are traveling.

Other Key Features of SurvCentral include:

• Secure Access
• Session Expiration
• HTTPS for User Name and Password for Login
• Built-In Reports
• Optimized Menu Level Access
• Seamless, Intuitive Navigation
• Control Panel Display Optimization
• Administrative Tools to Manage User Accounts
• Direct Web Page, PDF File Loading Capability
• Portrait/Landscape Screen Scaling Optimization

Read more about Survalents ADMS solutions from Quasar

The MINER™ is a member of the Station Controller family of devices. Station Controllers not only combine the functions of a traditional RTU with the functionality of a Data Concentrator, but also includes a Terminal Server and a Web Server.

The MINER™ provides a balanced combination of I/O points and communication ports in a compact package, operating with just 6W in industrial temperature range.

The communications capabilities allow the MINER™ to connect to multiple IEDs either on multiple ports with multi-drop configurations or over one or two Ethernet ports. The communication to the master or masters can be configured to occur via one or more of four serial ports or via one or two Ethernet ports. When connected to an Ethernet LAN, one or more serial ports can be configured to act as terminal server ports. This allows a remote device (the master or other appropriate computer on the LAN) to access this port and exchange data with an external device. As an example, this feature can be used to remotely configure IEDs or upload historical data files.

The MINER™ has two dedicated serial ports for configuration, point monitoring and diagnostics. A simple terminal connected to this port will act as the Human interface. When connected to an Ethernet LAN, the same configuration and diagnostic operations can be performed remotely on the RTU via Telnet or Web Browser.

A powerful Web Server is also integrated within the MINER™. This user friendly tool allows operation, maintenance and configuration of the RTU without the need of proprietary software. Any standard web browser allows direct access to the web server built-in within the MINER ™.

Simple configuration is provided by the Points Mapping Wizard which allows points mapping of third party IEDs and I/O cards in a graphical environment. An extensive library of point maps is available for the most common IEDs available on the market, making IED point mapping a few clicks of the mouse.