Digitization and Testing of Secondary Substations

Rico Reißmann, SÜC Energie und H2O GmbH; Florian Fink, OMICRON

Abstract The power supply figures in respect of renewable

energies speak for themselves. The Coburg region
currently contains the following producers of re-
Smart Grid is the talk of the town nowadays, even newable energy (as at 04.15.2018):
though hardly anyone really knows what it means.
• Unit-type thermal power plants (90) 7.7 MW
Most energy suppliers are already changing over to
Smart Grid, and SÜC Energie in Coburg is no excep- • Biomass power plants (36) 12.2 MW
tion. SÜC Energie is digitizing its secondary substa- • Wind turbines (1) 6.8 MW
tions to increase availability and keep a close eye on • Photovoltaic systems (2483) 69.6 MW
the power supply. This paper examines what digiti- • Hydroelectric power plants (21) 2 MW
zation involves and the implications it has for the With annual peak load figures of 116.7 MW, it is not
commissioning and maintenance testing of an intel- difficult to appreciate that the power flow in the
ligent secondary substation. distribution network no longer follows the tradition-
al “top to bottom” pattern, but that it can change
Keywords several times a day according to the weather condi-
tions.
• Intelligent secondary substation
• Smart Grid
• CMC
• COMPANO
• Non-conventional transformers

1 Introduction
The rapid increase in renewable energy is creating
additional workloads for both the transmission and
distribution networks. Whereas fewer larger power
plants are being connected to the transmission net-
work, renewable energy is behind the emergence in
the distribution network of what are known as re-
gional power plants. The transmission network is
now taking on the task of distributing energy from
the distribution networks to the locations across the
region where demand is highest. The role of the dis-
tribution network is to deliver energy across the
region and feed any surplus back into the transmis-
sion networks.
SÜC Coburg is a distribution network operator
whose power supply has both an urban and a rural
character. Although urban areas are generally con-
sumers of electrical energy, rural areas can, depend- Figure 2 The 20 KV network of SÜC Energie
ing on the weather conditions, produce large quanti-
ties of surplus energy. This unsurprisingly gives rise to a new set of chal-
lenges. Voltage drop takes on a completely new
meaning, as it is not just a question of by how many
percent, but also when, and under what weather and
power flow conditions. SÜC Energie has already
installed two in-phase regulators in the medium-
voltage network to compensate for the voltage drop
in rural areas.

Figure 1 Area covered by the power supply system

of SÜC Energie

© OMICRON electronics GmbH 2018 – User Meeting

2 New Standard for Secondary
Substations
Another approach that will help overcome the
aforementioned challenges it to make the secondary
substation more intelligent. The idea behind this is to
achieve the following objectives:
• Faster troubleshooting of faults in the medi-
um-voltage network
• Improved fault localization in the event of a
short circuit by the use of remote controlled
and resettable short-circuit indicators Figure 4 Standard SÜC secondary substation
• Quicker resetting after clearing the fault by
deploying remote-controlled load interrupt- This enables the network manager to obtain an
ers (thus reducing mean non-availability overview of the current system status and carry out
figures (SAIDI)) any switching operations.
• More user-friendly and faster performance
of scheduled switching operations (three-
terminal lines and disconnectors)
2.1.1 Real-Time Power Flow
Connecting network analysis devices located in the
medium-voltage network to the process control sys-
tem also enables a power flow analysis to be carried
out in real time (Fig. 3). These data can then be used
in the network control center to optimize switching
operations and detect voltage quality issues in good
time.

Figure 5 Remote signaling and control using ABB FIONA

An ABB SafeRing AirPlus is used as medium-voltage

switchgear. A SIGMA short-circuit indicator from
Horstmann with a remote signaling contact is used in
the cable bays. This enables the network manager to
localize the source of the fault remotely and carry
out the necessary switching operations.
The transformer is protected by an REF615 feeder
protection relay from ABB. As the medium-voltage
Figure 3 Power flow also in real time on secondary substa- system is extremely compact, Rogowski current
tions sensors are deployed for current measurements
while resistive voltage dividers are used for measur-
2.1.2 Equipment in the Intelligent Secondary ing voltages.
Substation
A FIONA manufactured by ABB (Fig. 5) has been
installed for remote signaling and control purposes
in the concrete cell (Fig. 4) of the secondary substa-
tion.

Figure 6 ABB SafeRing AirPlus 20 kV switchgear

© OMICRON electronics GmbH 2018 – User Meeting

Voltage quality in the medium-voltage network is values are output to the protection device when a
documented and signaled using a Janitza network CMC test set is plugged into the ABB test adapter
analysis device. using the REF6XX adapter. This means that a protec-
tion test could be carried out while the equipment is
3 Joint Workshop for Testing in operation.
The connecting of binary contacts of the CMC test set
Secondary Substations cannot be carried out in the usual way due to the
Staff of SÜC Energie and OMICRON met in March integrated coil monitoring within the REF615. The
2018 to discuss ways of commissioning secondary threshold value for the status assessment has to be
substations in an as efficient and cost-effective man- adjusted extremely carefully to ensure that the volt-
ner as possible in the years ahead. It was agreed that age level is recorded correctly.
as a secondary substation is not a transformer sta-
tion, a different set of conditions would apply to
their testing. The question is: what are they? Where
and how should testing be carried out, and in what
areas can the tests be simplified?

Figure 8 ABB sensor test adapters in the low-voltage com-

partment

What is striking in the case of primary injection is

that the current sensor (Rogowski coil) must be
Figure 7 Secondary substation testing workshop positioned correctly if precise current values are to
be obtained. The best approach is to feed a (medium-
First up was the ABB REF615 protection device and voltage) cable through the middle of the split-core
its non-conventional inputs. This device employs a sensor. If this is not possible because the split-core
two-stage definite-time overcurrent relay to protect current transformer already contains a medium-
the transformer. voltage cable, then some deviations must be ex-
pected.
What became immediately apparent was that the
transformation ratios for current and voltage sen-
sors in PCM 600 and Test Universe are set in differ-
ent ways. Due to the non-conventional sensors,
transformation factors such as 10,000/1 V for volt-
age and 80 A ≙ 150 mV for current were used.
All settings and parameters used in the tests refer to
primary values. It makes no sense to convert them to
secondary values as this is no longer necessary.
What is important is to carry out a primary and sec-
ondary wiring test ahead of the protection test itself
to check that all transformation ratios have been
entered correctly and that all plugs are plugged in
properly.
ABB has installed a sensor test adapter in the low- Figure 9 Primary injection into a current sensor
voltage compartment to cater for the combination of
signals from current and voltage sensors and to pro- To optimize the measuring system, ABB has speci-
vide a defined “test plug” (see Fig. 8). As impedance fied correction factors for the current and voltage
ratios are similar to those of conventional current sensors. After the primary injection and close obser-
transformers (sensors have a high impedance, pro- vation of the correction factors, it became clear that
tection relays a very low one), another fact that these factors are negligible in the case of definite-
emerged from the workshop was that no primary time overcurrent protection. The correction factors

© OMICRON electronics GmbH 2018 – User Meeting

make the calculation and input of the settings unnec- 6 Commissioning of a
essarily complicated, both in the PCM600 and the
Test Universe. It only makes sense to use the correc- Secondary Substation
tion factors if the protection device and correspond-
Once the secondary substation has been trucked to
ing sensors are being used to obtain a measurement
the site, all that then remains to be done in terms of
to an accuracy of within 1%.
on-site commissioning is to carry out a brief check
A primary injection into the sensors is a way of using a primary injection. This allows the operation
checking how the currents and voltages have been of the already configured components to be checked
allocated. In the case of a 20 kV installation, the volt- one more time. As the primary tripping currents can
age indicators on the REF615 when used together be generated by the battery-powered COMPANO
with a resistive voltage divider react above approx. 100, this new OMICRON test set is the ideal on-site
200 V. This corresponds to 20 mV “secondary”. partner. As no laptop is required, the engineer can
The functional check of the Horstmann SIGMA 2.0 carry out the test very easily. The device is also able
short-circuit indicator can also be carried out using a to carry out other on-site tests such as microohm
primary injection. The Test button can be used to measurements, grounding and step and touch volt-
lower the settings to 10 A primary to check opera- age testing.
tion and phase allocation as far as the process con-
trol system.

4 Findings from the Workshop

Carrying out the “secondary” protection testing of
the protection devices in a secondary substation
makes a lot of sense. Some irregularities occurred
that would not otherwise have been detected, even
when testing this decidedly simple definite-time
overcurrent relay.
To simplify the parameterization of protection de-
vices for the secondary substations in the future, a
single protection relay configuration has been creat-
ed for all transformer types. The parameters are
organized using parameter groups to allow the set- Figure 10 Step and touch voltage testing using COMPANO
tings to be adjusted to cater for the respective out- and HGT1
puts of the transformers. As the same sensors can be
used for all transformers and the REF615 supports 7 Maintenance Testing of a Sec-
six parameter groups, parameterization becomes
much simpler. This is a real plus point, as the team ondary Substation
frequently does not know which transformer the
respective secondary substation is using until it ar- Maintenance testing can be carried out in much the
rives on site. same way as commissioning. A short primary test
will suffice to check the operation of the entire trou-
bleshooting process. This complete system test co-
5 Factory Acceptance of a vers the whole troubleshooting process: Sensors,
Secondary Substation secondary wiring, protection relay and the circuit
breaker. The best method of assessment is to meas-
SÜC Energie will in future carry out a protection test ure the auxiliary contact of the circuit breaker.
with a CMC 430 during factory acceptance (commis-
sioning in the factory yard) in order to verify that all 8 Summary
the settings in the protection device have been con-
figured. A comprehensive wiring test, which will also New technology brings secondary substations up to
include components in the process control system, speed to meet the challenges of the energy revolu-
will also be carried out. This will enable control of tion. However, testing is strongly recommended to
the installation to be tested before it is installed in ensure that the technology is working properly. Care
the factory. The final stage of commissioning is a should be taken to ensure that the effort involved is
system test using a primary injection. expended wisely; after all, a secondary substation is
not a transformer station. It is good practice to draw
up a strategy for factory testing, on-site commission-
ing and repeat testing so that the operation of instal-
lation components can be ensured at all times. The
same applies when differentiating between the test

© OMICRON electronics GmbH 2018 – User Meeting

sets used in each case, as these will have been opti-
mized for the various applications.

About the Authors

Electrical engineer Rico
Reißmann, born in Erlabrunn in
1977. After an apprenticeship as a
power electronics installer at
Energieversorgung Südsachsen,
he worked as a service technician
on the medium-voltage network.
Rico Reißmann has been working
for SÜC Energie und H²O GmbH
since 2000 – he began as a service
technician for power supply systems and studied at
the same time to become an electrical engineer, a
qualification he obtained in 2004. He was deputy
technical supervisor from 2004 until 2007, when he
moved to the line protection/cable test vehicle de-
partment. In 2017, Rico also took on responsibility
for the SÜC network control center.
[email protected]

Florian Fink was born in 1983 in

Bergisch Gladbach. He studied
Electrical Engineering at the Uni-
versity of Applied Sciences in
Cologne, where he completed his
undergraduate engineering de-
gree (Dipl.-Ing. FH) in 2009. From
2009 until 2012, he worked for
Cegelec Deutschland as a project
engineer, and from 2012 to 2013
was employed by InfraServ Knapsack as a planning
engineer. He has been working as a product manager
in the field of industrial and distribution networks
for OMICRON since 2013.
[email protected]

© OMICRON electronics GmbH 2018 – User Meeting

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