Integrated protection and control for MV/LV substations

This paper describes a way of producing packaged protection and control systems to simplify deployment. These systems use distributed processing of the electrical network protection or monitoring functions, with a number of modules communicating with a head unit that provides communication and management functions. At a conceptual level, this is similar to the “virtualized” protection and control schemes that are now being proposed for la rger substations. In a virtualized control scheme, functions are moved from switch-yard devices to powerful computer servers in the substation control room. Whether using IT virtualization or not, one of the key requirements is to adopt a modular approach to the system design. The system must be broken down to functions that can be allocated to the appropriate physical devices. This approach of functional decomposition is also the same approach that is used in the IEC 61850 standard.