Open Architecture for Cost Effective Protection and Control of Power Distribution Networks

The paper aims at demonstrating the feasibility of an execution platform that is capable of performing protection and control functions from various vendors in a controlled manner. This will reduce vendor dependency enabling utilities to standardize hardware while implementing complex protection schemes from multiple vendors at reduced cost. The paper develops protection system including earth, differential and overcurrent protection functions from different vendors integrated in one hardware using IEC 61499 open reference architecture. IEC 61499 enables efficient and flexible design and implementation of the distributed automation systems. Selected substation is modelled in Matlab Simulink. Developed protection scheme is performed by programmable automation controller (PAC) and validated by connecting it to the simulation model of the substation. The protection scheme satisfied all functional requirements. At present, authors are working on validating its timing properties.