Transpower Islington – In With The New?

It was out with the old and in with the new recently for the HMI/SCADA at Transpower’s (TP) Islington Substation, one of their largest and most complex sites. The previous HMI system was at ‘end of life’, utilising an obsolete operating system & associated PC hardware, and posing an unacceptable risk of the loss of local control facilities at the substation. The requirement was for a replacement HMI system (both hardware & software) with almost 5000 points, communicating with the 53 C50 RTUs, used for control and indication functions as well as Reactive Power Control. Monitoring and control of the RTUs is carried out remotely from Transpower’s national SCADA and via the local HMI system.

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Transpower’s staff worked closely with the project implementation team which included Survalent Technology (STC) of Ontario Canada supplier of the HMI system, Quasar Systems STC’s NZ Integrator, TP’s external consultant Power System Consultants, and their Station Maintenance Contractor Transfield Services.

Being a significant technology upgrade, the opportunity was taken to update the HMI communications protocol from Harris HR6000, to DNP3 over IP (DNPi), as well as equipping the system with dual redundant masters, dual redundant switches, and dual communications to the RTUs. The architecture allows for connectivity to the corporate WAN. This is Transpower’s first implementation of DNPi, and is the initial step in the migration to IEC61850 protocol, using Survalent’s advanced technology.

Operator-friendly graphics are provided using Survalent’s Worldview vector-based graphics, featuring unlimited views & layers with de-cluttering plus seamless panning & zooming. Single line diagrams can use the integrated Topology Processor whereby line sections can be shown energised, de-energised, or back fed, via line colours and/or line styles. The calculation is based on the topology of the network and the current status of breakers, switches, and other circuit elements. Control panel pop-ups allow the operator to view IED front panels as if they were standing in front of them in the field.

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The development of the system was a team effort led by Survalent and their Certified NZ Integrator Quasar Systems. It was completed in a fraction of the time it would have taken to complete the project with other SCADA systems. The powerful tools provided within SCADA Explorer such as IED Wizard and the group tagging capability, allowed significant savings in integration time.

SCADA Explorer is the friendly database editing environment for the Windows SCADA System. An intuitive graphical environment provides the user with ready access to all configuration settings. Since development time is one of the most important contributors to total cost for any HMI/SCADA project, these tools are a serious consideration when evaluating the overall cost of the system, not only initially but also when considering future enhancements, expansions, and day to day maintenance.

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IED Wizard is a tool that automates the creation of the database of intelligent electronic devices (IED). In just a few simple steps, the wizard creates the new points in the SCADA system database. Using Survalent Station Controllers the newly created points can then be downloaded to the RTU. A development system was provided to allow online system maintenance and configuration changes to be made remotely without the need to restart the local system.

Survalent is a 43 year veteran in the supply of SCADA/HMI/RTU systems and Substation Automation Solutions Worldwide. Personnel include highly experienced SCADA software development engineers operating from Toronto Canada, Skopje Macedonia, and Jakarta Indonesia.

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