Product category:
Plantwide control
News Release from: Citect | Subject: DNP3 driver
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 16 July 2007
System monitors hundreds of sub stations
Yorkshire Electrical Distribution's Citect control system employs remote RTUs communicating to two central servers using the DNP3 driver, which has been expanded to accommodate 1000 remote sites.
Citect has supplied a 50,000-point CitectScada system to Yorkshire Electrical Distribution (YEDL) for remote control and monitoring of hundreds of remote sub stations in the West and South Yorkshire area The Citect control system employs remote RTUs communicating to two central servers using Citect's free-of charge DNP3 driver, which has been specially expanded by Citect to accommodate around 1000 remote sites
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 6 Jun 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Software boosts yacht energy efficiency
Through clustering, control environments can reduce the high costs associated with multiple redundancies in hardware, while still ensuring server availability.
Control system manages the movements entire city
A large CitectScada system comprised of 2- 5000 point full system keys and 25 - 5000 point client displays allows the monitoring of Perth's integrated transportation system.
"CitectScada came highly recommended", said Graeme Melia, Technical Engineer at YEDL.
"We liked the fact that it is a very expandable system and extremely easy to use".
"Using the software we have just five templates covering all aspects of the distribution control system; if we want to add a new site we just add a line and tell the Scada system which template to use, then its job done".
"The system was developed and installed by ABB who worked with the support of the Citect professional services".
YEDL is the distribution network operator for a major part of West and South Yorkshire, an area encompassing cities such as Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield and Hull.
Further reading
Migration software eases Scada switchover
The latest version of Switch2Citect provides enhanced functionality, not only to migrate but also to improve the conversion of legacy systems.
Service oriented architecture boosts MES software
Ampla V3.2 provides new features to support service oriented architectures (SOA) and significantly reduce the time to develop operational reports.
Factory-wide reporting system cuts manual input
Ryvita required a fast, flexible factory-wide reporting system that would overcome the major obstacle to production of manual data entry.
The company has implemented the GBP 40,000 distribution control system as part of OFGEM's Information Incentive Project, an initiative that is aimed at improving the quality of supply to users, by achieving superior control and monitoring of the distribution network".
"The Distribution Control System offers a number of major benefits, both to customers and to us", said Graeme Melia.
"First, quality supply improvements are gained through reductions in the number of supply minutes lost".
"With the Citect system we can switch networks around to restore supply after faults have occurred; if we have a fault between two substations we can isolate the section between the two and restore power quickly".
"Second, the ability to set up protection remotely on pole-mounted auto reclosers to enable safe working on the system; this is imperative as some of the work is undertaken on live conductors".
"Third, the fact that we have remote control of equipment scattered all around of our supply area means that we are able to address the costly issue of travel times to these sites".
"We decided to use our existing private mobile radio (PMR) as our transmission medium because the technology already exists at many of our sites", said Graeme Melia.
"The advantages of PMR are that it is mature, well proven, and offers a blanket coverage that is totally independent of the electricity distribution network".
"Other systems were available but the coverage they provided and ongoing cost were issues that decided us against them".
The PMR system is used in conjunction with Citect's DNP3 (Distributed Network Protocol) driver, which comes as part of CitectScada.
DNP3 is an open and public protocol that is used mainly in the utilities industries.
It is designed to allow reliable communications in the adverse environments that electric utility automation systems are subjected to; being designed specifically to overcome distortion induced by EMI, aging components whose expected lifetimes may stretch into decades, and poor transmission mediums.
Because DNP3 is based on the IEC 870-5 requirements, it is suitable for application in the entire Scada environment.
This includes RTU to IED communications, master to remote communications, and even peer-to-peer instances and network applications.
Being an object-based application layer protocol, DNP3 has the flexibility to support multiple operating modes such as poll-response, polled report-by-exception, unsolicited responses and peer to peer.
It permits multiple masters and encourages distributed intelligence.
The PMR/DNP3 network, presently encompassing 1000 sites, is linked to a central control room housing 2 - 50,000 point servers, one of which is configured as a cold standby, and four display clients.
The clients are manned 24/7 by the control engineers who manage the system.
As part of the control process all events are recorded and archived to an external log, providing a transparent operating record for the distribution control system. Request a free brochure from Citect ...
• Citect: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Engineeringtalk email newsletter
• Engineeringtalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
