Through the company’s contribution of its grid automation technology to the project, it will allow a digital substation scheme to protect, monitor and control transmission networks in some regions of Scotland.
Under the project, two bays of the existing Wishaw 275-kilovolt substation in Scotland will be equipped with new digital protection and control systems, which will also allow enhanced system visibility, diagnostics and operation.
ABB will provide a range of digital substation components such as intelligent electronic devices (IEDs), non-conventional instrument transformers, merging units, phasor measurement units which are interfaced with IEC 61850-9-2 process bus architecture and with the wide area monitoring platform.
ABB power grids division president Claudio Facchin said: "This project will demonstrate how digitalized communications within a substation can increase controllability, facilitate the integration of intermittent renewables and improve safety by replacing copper cabling with fiber optics."
SP Energy Networks senior project manager, Priyanka Mohapatra said: "SP Energy Networks endeavors to deliver value for money for UK customers through the FITNESS project and bring innovative digital substation solutions that also enable optimization of asset investments."
"We are also expecting a saving in overall substation costs when digital technology is adopted as the UK norm, and a footprint reduction of around 15 percent."
The project proposes a reduced outage and low risk approach to future substation monitoring, protection, automation, and control, by allowing rapid deployment, improved safety and greater controllability with a reduced footprint and lower cost than conventional design.
It intends to allow the UK transmission owners and distribution network owners to apply a digital substation design approach to future load and non-load related investment after successful demonstration.
Image: Wind farm in Scotland. Photo: Courtesy of ABB.
