IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2019 - 4

from the editor

Michael Henderson

substations of the future
advances in systems & equipment

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2019.2910426
Date of publication: 18 June 2019

ieee power & energy magazine

©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/GARRYKILLIAN

ADVANCES IN SUBSTATIONS HAVE
come a long way! System needs now call
for smaller footprints, greater reliability,
easier maintainability, faster construction, and lower costs. New and creative
means of successfully integrating renewable resources with the grid create
additional requirements.
The substation of the future has become a reality today. Innovative features
of design and equipment address system
needs in many ways. Gas-insulated substations (GISs) provide opportunities
for small size, and their modular design can meet requirements for fast and
flexible engineering, procurement, and
construction, including the ability to be
located offshore. Reducing or eliminating the use of sulfur hexafluoride
in insulating gasses would help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Airinsulated substations also demonstrate
improvements in equipment performance and can often be constructed
with lower capital costs than GISs. Both
technologies must provide hardening
against the elements as well as physical
security and cybersecurity.
The days of complicated wiring
schemes and palatial control houses
have ended, as fiber networks are replacing wires, and solid-state components are supplanting electromechanical
equipment. Condition monitoring in
conjunction with adaptive protection
and control improves the reliability of
equipment and the overall system.

New substations mean new types of
equipment. Flexible ac transmission
systems and synchronous condensers
improve system performance, which
have become increasingly impor tant
with the large-scale growth of variable
resources. Circuit breaker offerings
provide higher fault interrupting capability, better maintainability, and
higher reliability. The growth of highvoltage (HV) dc applications means
that more substations will need to accommodate both ac and dc equipment.
Traditional components of substations
also reflect advances in quality control
and reliability.

In This Issue
Our guest editor, Girish Behal, has collected articles by authors representing
a cross section of IEEE Regions. The
issue describes state-of-the-art developments of substations including
✔ the integration of modern substation equipment in the Republic of Korea

✔ synchronous condenser applica-

tions and the studies necessary
for their successful deployment
✔ the opportunities and means of
achieving digitally enabled substations
✔ dc substations as integral parts
of HVdc grids
✔ substations for integrating offshore wind.
This issue also features a standalone
article by representatives of the IEEE
Power & Energy Society (PES) Industry Technical Support Task Force
(ITSTF) that discusses the challenges
and opportunities resulting from changes in the power generation resource
mix. The authors expand upon the expert testimony the ITSTF provided to
the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission by discussing generation
portfolio trends and essential reliability services, lessons learned from increases in distributed energy resources,
planning and operational needs and
solutions the industry must provide, and
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