8
Major Advantages of Distribution Automation
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Economic Challenges
More and more electric
utilities are looking to distribution automation as an answer to the three
main economic challenges facing the industry:
- The rising cost of adding generating capacity,
- Increased saturation of existing distribution networks and
- Greater sensitivity to customer service.[/info_box]
Therefore, utilities that
employ distribution automation expect both cost and service benefits.
These benefits accumulate
in areas that are related to investments, interruptions and customer service,
as well as in areas related to operational cost savings, as given below:
1. Reduced line loss
The distribution substation
is the electrical hub for the distribution network.
A close coordination
between the substation equipment, distribution feeders and associated equipment
is necessary to increase system reliability. Volt/VAR control is
addressed through expert algorithms which monitors and controls substation
voltage devices in coordination with down-line voltage devices to reduce line
loss and increase line throughout.
2. Power quality
Mitigation equipment is
essential to maintain power quality over
distribution feeders.
The substation RTU in conjunction with power
monitoring equipment on the feeders monitors, detects, and corrects
power-related problems before they occur, providing a greater level of customer
satisfaction.
3. Deferred capital
expenses
A preventive maintenance algorithm may be
integrated into the system. The resulting ability to schedule maintenance,
reduces labour costs, optimizes equipment use and extends equipment
life.
4. Energy cost reduction
Real-time monitoring of
power usage
throughout the distribution feeder provides data allowing the end user to track
his energy consumption patterns, allocate usage and assign accountability to
first line supervisors and daily operating personnel to reduce overall costs.
5. Optimal energy use
Real-time control, as part
of a fully-integrated, automated power management system, provides the ability
to perform calculations to reduce demand charges.
It also offers a load-shedding / preservation algorithm to
optimize utility and multiple power sources, integrating cost of power into the
algorithm.
6. Economic benefits
Investment related benefits
of distribution automation came from a more effective use of the system.
Utilities are able to operate closer to the edge to the physical limits of
their systems. Distribution automation makes this possible by providing
increased availability of better data for planning, engineering and
maintenance.
Investment related benefits
can be achieved by deferring addition of generation capacity, releasing
transmission capacity and deferring the addition, replacement of distribution
substation equipment. Features such as voltage/VAR control, data
monitoring and logging and load management contribute to capital
deferred benefits.
Distribution automation can
provide a balance of both quantitative and qualitative benefits in the areas of
interruption and customer service by automatically locating feeder faults,
decreasing the time required to restore service to unfaulted feeder sections,
and reducing costs associated with customer complaints.
7. Improved reliability
On the qualitative side,
improved reliability adds perceived value for customer and reduce the number of
complaints. Distribution automation features that provide interruption and
customer service related benefits include load shedding and other
automatic control functions.
Lower operating costs are another major benefits
of distribution automation.
Operating cost reduction
are achieved through improved voltage profiles, controlled VAR flow, repairs
and maintenance savings, generation fuel savings from reduced substation
transformer load losses, reduced feeder primary and distribution transformer
losses, load management and reduced spinning reserve requirements.
In addition, data
acquisition and processing and remote metering functions play a
large role in reducing operating costs and should be considered an integral
part of any distribution automation system. Through real time operation,
the control computer can locate the faults much faster and control the switches
and reclosures to quickly reroute power and minimize the total time-out, thus
increasing the system reliability.
8. Compatibility
Distribution automation
spans many functional and product areas including computer systems, application
software, RTUs, communication systems and metering products. No single
vendor provides all the pieces. Therefore, in order to be able to supply a
utility with a complete and integrated system, it is important for the supplier
to have alliances and agreements with other vendors.
An effective distribution
automation system combines complementary function and capabilities and
require an architecture that is flexible or “opens” so that it can accommodate
products from different vendors.
In addition, a distribution
automation system often requires interfaces with existing system in order to
allow migration and integration, still monitoring network security.
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