IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2019 - 104

in my view (continued from p. 108)
Digitizing the substation leads to
smaller, lighter, and higher quality sen-
sors that are expected to replace today's
standardized substation equipm e n t
(e.g., instrument transformers). This
will also reduce the substation's over-
all footprint and its adverse environ-
mental impacts. Continued improve-
ments in processing power (with the
advent of quantum computing) will
enable substation platforms to not just
gather and share data but also possi-
bly manage and identify issues and po-
tential solutions additionally.

Robots Are Coming
AI has seen improvements by leaps
and bounds in recent years, by apply-
ing advances in processing power and
improving the underlying algorithms.
The combination of data available from
various substation equipment, the sur-
rounding grid, and generation resources
on a single platform will enable AI
to monitor, manage, and even self-heal
substations. While this might sound a
bit far in the future, even today AI is
starting to permeate our daily life and
slowly improving its quality. We can ex-
pect that AI advances will lead to more
efficient, reliable, and better substations
that each manage a local area, support-
ing the overall resilience and safety
of the larger grid. The standardization

and wider adoption of generic object-
oriented substation event messaging
based on the control model, defined un-
der the IEC 61850 protocol, is moving
us in this direction quickly. Although
many utilities are adopting the standard
slowly due to interoperability issues,
many original equipment manufactur-
ers realize the necessity of making their
equipment compatible with competitors
to enable the utility deployment of pro-
cess bus-based systems. Organizations
like the New York Power Authority cre-
ate and test AI-based systems to man-
age the grid efficiently. It may not be
far-fetched to think that in the very near
future, local substations will act as a
node on a larger grid managed more ef-
ficiently by AI.

Virtual Reality
In addition to AI, the increased pro-
cessing power also enables a wider vir-
tual reality (VR) adoption. We already
see applications of VR in the nuclear
industry, in which a virtual image of
constrained and hazardous environ-
ments (a digital twin) is created to train
personnel prior to exposure in danger-
ous environments. The experience with
VR is slowly being translated to other
industries, including the designs of new
substations (Figure 1). New substations
can be designed in 3D, which could be

figure 1. Engineers designing in a VR environment. (Source: SNC-Lavalin; used
with permission.)
104

ieee power & energy magazine

translated to a VR environment. This
environment can be used to visualize
equipment and enable the creation of
full simulation models capable of test-
ing AI platforms and operations in a
safe environment. The industry expects
VR models to be fully intelligent (i.e.,
incorporating detailed equipment pa-
rameters) and used for training the
workforce of tomorrow. We anticipate
that the VR environment will encour-
age more innovative ideas to be tested
and then implemented in fields that use
AI. Within 15 years, AI will be used
in a VR environment to design, build,
and operate a very space-efficient and
human-centric substation.

Cybersecurity
Since most sectors of the economy de-
pend on a reliable energy source like
electricity, the threat of cyberbreaches
is perhaps the most concerning chal-
lenge for the electric grid. We can ex-
pect that the growth of cybersecurity
tools will be used to tackle these issues
as substations become more data cen-
tric and software based. The need for
security protocols will also influence
the software platform designs for fu-
ture substations.

DC Substations
The DOE is investing in research and
development for the deployment of low-
and medium-voltage dc substations. This
would entail building a new class of
power electronics to support dc substa-
tions that would be energy efficient and
could offer other advantages, if they can
be implemented cost-effectively. The
need for ac/dc converters could be elimi-
nated for household and industrial equip-
ment loads operating on dc power, such
as power electronic devices. This would
enable the integration of DERs, energy
storage, and electric vehicles at a faster
rate and greatly reduce system losses.
Some other benefits of dc substations in-
clude reduced system fault levels, easier
grid reconfigurations, scalability, modu-
larity, flexibility, and a smaller footprint.
july/august 2019
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2019
