Introduction: Maximising economic and effective utilisation of the transmission asset and network is the key objective. The deployment of the technology advocated for this IFI will allow ongoing substation secondary equipment retrofitting (refurbishment) projects to proceed whilst limiting the duration and frequency of circuit outages, required to facilitate the work. Once the new technology is installed, secondary equipment renewals occurring mid-life in the primary plant lifecycle can be undertaken in a safer, quicker and easier way with much reduced outages of primary systems. At any time, secondary system upgrades and modifications can be undertaken without a primary circuit outage. This will also significantly reduce the outage period required for substation extensions.

In order to pursue this strategy, sufficient confidence must be demonstrated in the philosophy and the new technology, hence the need for the IFI research. The work is thus strategic, aligned to the AS3 project and is designed to understand the impact of the emerging technology of process bus architecture on the performance of protection and control equipments.

Objectives: The key objective of this project is to investigate, quantify and optimise the level of security, dependability and operating speed in secondary schemes using IEC 61850. As a precursor to wide deployment of the philosophy in AS3 project, it must be ensured that the performance of the protection and control scheme meets or exceeds that of its hardwired predecessors.