IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2019 - 18

costs. As the authors point out, synchronous condensers are one of many
devices that can improve system performance by addressing variability issues
resulting from the high penetration of
renewable resources. The studies highlighted in the article are also needed
for planning other types of FACTS devices, and in all cases, they provide the
information necessary for ensuring the
appropriate design of equipment that
meets grid support requirements.
The next article, by Rich Hunt,
Byron Flynn, and Terry Smith, describes
a digitally enabled substation, its architecture, and areas of development. It
builds on the discussion in the first article by Kim et al., regarding the digitalization and modularization of the substations. The authors show the advantages
of a digitally enabled substation that can
readily adapt to increased levels of inverter-based DERs and electric vehicles
while providing improved control of
the power system at the local distribution feeder level. Given the many-fold

increase in the number of stakeholders participating in the production and
distribution of electricity, the authors
believe that utilities would optimize
grid investment by interacting with each
stakeholder and leveraging system data.
This would require a larger amount of
flexibility in the power control system.
To that end, the authors explore the architecture of the digitally enabled substation that would provide the required
adaptability and flexibility. They expect
a variety of applications running on a
software platform that would provide
a wide range of services based on the
sensing data from the substation and
the larger network. Stakeholders, such
as utility operators, would need to interact with potentially thousands of devices and improve situational awareness
required to operate the system reliably
and efficiently. As the power system
becomes more unpredictable with less hierarchical control, situational intelligence
can be obtained using a variety of monitoring systems, ranging from wide area

monitoring systems to small monitoring
sensors on the equipment measuring the
operational reliability of the power system
equipment. All the collected data would
then need to be organized, evaluated, and
utilized for substations to operate reliably
and almost independently.
Hunt et al. discuss steps that the industry would need to take to support the
digitization of the substation and the
status of standards, available hardware,
and initial adoption by industry. They
address the process bus design in detail,
including process interface units, which
would exist close to the primary equipment and act as the interface between the
digital systems and power system equipment. Other pieces of equipment may
be replaced by digital instruments that
reduce overall cost, improve accuracy,
and enable better system protection.
With increased accuracy, analyticsbased asset management systems could
improve predictive maintenance equipment models by identifying issues sooner
than is currently possible. The digital

http://www.powerworld.com

IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2019

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