North American Transmission Forum

Flag City Project

And Process Bus

Jason Byerly
American Electric Power

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AEP IEC-61850 History

• UCA/IEC-61850 since late 1990’s

• MMS since early 2001 for SDR’s

• 1st Process Bus pilot project in 2007

• 2nd Process Bus pilot project in 2012

(Roberts, Sys1 - GE)

• 1st all fiber protection and control system

at Flag City (2015-2016)
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1st Process Bus Project – Corridor
• 2007 worked with GE to pilot the installation of
the GE Brick at Corridor 345kV substation
• Bricks and GE relays were installed
• Goal of the project was to build confidence in the analog
values and time stamping for protection
• Lessons Learned
• Few faults at 345kV for data gathering
• Did not wire in tripping outputs for trip time comparison
• Provided a comparison for cost savings associated with
eliminating control cable to substation equipment
• AEP Protection Engineers learned very little and
built ZERO confidence in the ability to use the
GOOSE portion of IEC-61850 for protection
tripping functions 3
2st Process Bus Project – Roberts
• 2012 worked with GE to pilot fully integrated
protection system
• 2 Transformer Zones
• 2 Bus Differential Zones
• 8 Distribution Feeders
• System was in parallel with AEP Standard
protection system
• Wired contacts at the breaker to confirm trip
times over fiber connection
• Reviewed many fault operations on distribution
lines and gained confidence in system
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Roberts Continued

Hard-Fiber
B95 Bus 1&2
Patch Panel

T60-T3
Hard-Fiber
Cables
F60-30

F60-9

F60-8

F60-7

F60-6

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Roberts Continued
• AEP Protection Engineers were able to build confidence in
the digital signals supplied to the brick from the relays. All
oscillography data confirmed in service hard wired
protection system trips to be 1 – 2 ms faster

• AEP Protection Engineers were able develop a high level

confidence that an installation using this platform will
provide cost savings

• AEP Protection Engineers were able confirm test procedures

that would be necessary to successfully commission a fully
integrated protection system using this hybrid IEC-
61850/Process Bus solution WITHOUT using specialized test
equipment

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1st All Fiber P&C Substation - Flag City
• Distribution substation protected and controlled
entirely by fiber-optic technology

• Applying IEC 61860 coupled with GE Hard Fiber

technology

• Fiber optic cables replace about 85% of copper wires

in the substation (9000’ vs. 58000’)

• GE Bricks / GE UR provide entire substation

protection with no backup copper system

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Flag City
• Planning and Engineering
2015/2016

• Factory testing performed

May, 2016

• Major equipment delivery

June, 2016

• Service planned
December, 2016

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Flag City

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Flag City

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Feeder Circuit Breaker

• Two pre-wired GE Bricks

(line zone, bus zone)

• Test switches for testing and

isolation purposes

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Feeder Protection

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Feeder Protection

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Feeder Cables

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Feeder Bricks – Remote I/O 1

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Feeder Brick – Remote I/O 2

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Feeder Relay – GE UR F60

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Network
• LAN consist of two Ethernet switches for failover redundancy

• SCADA, Engineering Access, 61850 MMS, Switch Management,

GOOSE, PTP

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Factory Testing
• Factory tested at MEPPI the GE Bricks in May
• Wiring check

• Verified all inputs operate as specified

• Factory tested the DICM at Systems Control in June

• Wiring check

• Verified protection, alarms, monitoring, network

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Flag City DICM Pictures

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Next Steps
• September – DICM and switchyard equipment will be
installed and powered up
• Plug and work – Install fiber patch cables between
switchyard and DICM Fiber Splice Cabinet
• Re-test relays – Similar to Systems Control visit, relays
will be tested with GE Bricks
• In-service 12/1/2016
• New project at Roberts station
• Install SEL TiDL to validate technology
• Consideration for second relay system for
Transmission applications (Redundancy)
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Roberts Sys2 – SEL TiDL
• Like 2013 GE Hard Fiber project, AEP must
validate SEL TiDL by installing and
monitoring performance
• Installation shall be completed by end of 2016
• TiDL will provide AEP transmission a
redundant and independent point-to-point
system to replicate existing relay standards

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 Simplicity of Pt-to-Pt Architecture
Time-Domain Link (TiDL) Technology

Direct Fiber

Direct Fiber

Direct Fiber

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Digital Substations Using TiDL

SEL-400 series relays

+
Axion® nodes in the yard
+Point-to-point fiber

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 What Is TiDL?
Time-Domain Link Technology

• IEC 61158 EtherCAT®-based transport

• Point-to-point connections
• Synchronous 24 kHz sampling
• No external time source required
• No settings!

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Discussion

Questions?

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