Distribution Feeder Automation Project

I. Introduction

　　To meet the national economic prosperity and the industrial promotion, and to increase the people’s living standard, Taipower is taking its full effort to enhance the network infrastructure to provide more reliable and higher quality of electricity. In fact, distribution system is the most downstream level of the electric power system, and is directly related to the customer’s electricity consumption. However, due to its wide spread in area and easily affected by nature phenomena such as weather, electric network fault is unavoidable. When fault occurs, it is our aim to locate and isolate the fault in the shortest possible time, such that power could be restored quickly.
　
　　Due to the fast growing economy that causes the highly concentrated population in the metropolitan area, traffic jams occur very often. Whenever outages occur, it is almost impossible to reach the fault location quickly to carry out emergency repair. The duration of power outage would be extended and induces many complaints from the customers. Therefore, to reduce the outage time and the affected area are the focus of improvement on distribution power system.
　
　

II. System Objectives

1. To reduce outage duration and affected area and increase reliability of power supply.

2. To computerize the supervisory control of distribution system and establish comprehensive information for operation.

3. To promote the technical level of distribution system operation and enhance customer-end service.

III. Installation History

1. Distribution Feeder remote supervisory control system：

(1). Construction duration：MAR 1985 to JUN 1985.

(2). Project range：2 substations，13 feeders and 30 remote control switches.

2. The first stage distribution feeder automation control system：

(1). Construction duration：FEB 1993 to JAN 1995.

(2). Project range：2 substations，35 feeders and 107 remote control switches.

3. Mountain area distribution feeder SCADA system：

(1). Construction duration：SEP 2003 to JAN 2004.

(2). Project range：6 substations，28 feeders and 51 remote control switches.

4. The second stage distribution feeder automation control system：

(1). Construction duration：JAN 2004 to APR 2006.

(2). Project range：8 substations，153 feeders and 478 remote control switches.

IV. Systematic characteristic

1. Using the latest science and automatic technology, integrated distribution system, communication system and computer system into distribution automated systems with intact function.

2. Adopting the open modular group structure, the interface and equipment conform to the international standard, easy to expand and maintain. Its application can be promoted progressively depending on the requirement and times.

3. Undertaken by domestic manufacturer as main contractor, the systematic manufacturer with experience contracts together oversea company, transfer large-scale distribution automatic technology and management in our country, and then promote the international competitiveness.

V. System Benefits

1. Greatly reduce the outage duration and affected area, increase the reliability of power supply

The system has introduced advanced distribution equipment for installation into distribution system, such as automatic line switch, terminal units, and so on. It also integrates and utilizes computer software, hardware, communication technique, for the construction of the DAS system, which consists of functions such as automatic monitoring and control, fault detection, automatic isolation and restoration, and remote line switch control. When faults occurs, the system can rapidly carry out fault isolation, load transfer, and restore the electricity to the healthy area so that the inconvenience to the customers caused by power interruption can be reduced to a minimal level. Since the completion of the system, it has actually helped the dispatchers to understand and effectively monitor/control the status of the power distribution system in real-time.

(1) Monitoring Distribution System Operation

By using Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) function to alert the operator when electric network feeder become abnormal so that the operator could take appropriate actions to avoid further trouble from happening. Thus increase the reliability of power supply.

(2) Reducing the outage affected area

By using the Fault Detection Isolation and Restoration (FDIR) function, when fault occurred on feeder, the system could locate and isolate the faulted area and transfer the load to other healthy feeder. Thus it reduces the blackout area to the neighboring area of the fault as well as the number of affected customers.

(3) Reducing outage duration

The FDIR function could shorten the outage duration by restore power to upstream of the fault. Also, by remote control load transfer operation, the downstream power restoration time could be reduced.

2. Computerize the supervisory control of distribution system and establish comprehensive information of operation

(1) During planned outage, the SCADA function could be used to remotely control the ON/OFF of automatic line switches. This could reduce manpower and increase work safety.

(2) The Source Database (Source DB) provided basic information of the distribution system, together with the Real-time Database（RTDB） established from the real time data obtained from FRTU and FTU, a complete database could be established, such that the dispatcher could monitor all different operation conditions of the distribution feeders.

3、Upgrade technical level of distribution technique and improve customer services.

The system, providing a comprehensive coverage from substations, feeders, to the customer-end, has successfully integrated computer system, communication system and automation system techniques for applications in distribution system. The result of advanced hardware and software functions together with the knowledge and intelligence not only greatly improve the technology level of distribution operation but also enhance customer services and elevate the company image.

VI. Future Prospects

Economic is the life of the country and electricity is an essential key for economic growth. In facing ever changing and competition of the overall economic environment and deregulation of electric utilities, Taipower is endeavored to satisfy various needs of the customer and to continuously enhance the quality of services as well as power supply. Indeed, that is to ensure the eternal operation of industries in Taiwan.