SCADA FOR POWER SYSTEM’S LOSS MONITORING AND MANAGEMENT

SCADA FOR POWER SYSTEM’S LOSS MONITORING AND MANAGEMENT
Guides in monitoring technical losses using SCADA system in electrical power system.

SCADA or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System have been very useful not only in electric industry application but also to any industry that requires remote monitoring and management. The evolution of SCADA system has been very extensive and its technological and software advancements became mostly reliable and stable.

We will discuss the specifics of the SCADA system in the later topics which will include its history, developments, purpose, and many other topics that involves the said system. The application of SCADA rely mostly on communication subjects, however, electrical experts invests a huge amount time in maximizing the use of this system since electrical engineers and analysts depends so much in the information that SCADA can gather.

For those of us who are not that familiar with SCADA, Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition System is simply has a fundamental purpose of remotely monitoring a range of processes, collecting real-time data and then perform analysis on the accumulated data.

The major popularity of SCADA to a utility is the ability to significantly reduce operating labor costs, while at the same time actually improve plant or regional system performance and reliability.  Information gathering within a plant no longer requires personnel to spend time wandering all over the site, and correspondingly the frequency of field site inspections required in a regional system can be minimized.

Costly after-hours alarm call-outs can often be avoided since a SCADA system will indicate the nature and degree of a problem, while the ability to remotely control site equipment may permit an operator at home to postpone a site visit till working hours.  SCADA based alarming is also very reliable since it is in-house and tied directly to process control.

SCADA system has a wide range of uses especially to Transmission and Distribution Companies. SCADA can monitor the real time reading of various feeders and substations all in one location or command center. Also, for the purpose of this discussion, SCADA can real-timely compare an upstream substation to a downstream substation and compute for its the real time losses for the line and the substation.

SCADA systems are typically composed of the Master SCADA Unit, Remote SCADA unit, Communication Media Unit, and SCADA Software. The Master SCADA Unit is the main control unit centrally located for use under the operators control. The remote unit is installed where the process is being monitored and collects the required process data for return to the Master SCADA Unit.

The Communication Media Unit transmits and receives data between the master unit and the remote units. The Communications Media can be a cable, wireless media, or satellite. The software is an interface between the operator and the units. It allows the operator to analyze, visualize and control the functions of the process.

The application of SCADA for transmission loss monitoring in an electrical power system has not really been given that much importance since its purpose basically focuses in feeder control and data consolidation.