Recently, people and businesses in some provinces of the Southern region have not suffered from long power cutoff due to power problems. The results are gained by EVNSPC’s application of new technology and operation of smart grid.
Easy to detect failures
6 years ago, Ben Tre Power Company was one of the leading units in the whole country to study and apply successfully the remote control system model for grid operation.
With the application of new technology, the system shall collect operation data and parameters continuously. More importantly, it can report failures and locate exactly the incident areas. All collected information shall be transmitted to the system operation division in the company’s head-office. Then, the operators shall switch on/off any equipment which is dozens of kilometers away to allocate and prevent the widespread of the failures.
Representative of Ben Tre Power Company introduced the operation of the remote data collection system- Photo: by Huyen Thuong
According to Trinh Minh Hong, Deputy Head of Dispatch department - Ben Tre Power Company, a smart grid system has many advantages compared to the conventional system. The operation parameters on a regular grid shall be manually collected by staff and the data collected can be used for reference only. Meanwhile, for smart grid, the parameters are displayed instantly in real time, helping staff assess the overall power status and adjust the parameters appropriately.
Besides, when a failure occurs on a regular grid, it may take more time to determine the location and may be difficult to assume the extent of damage. By contrast, the operation department can detect the problem on the smart grid immediately within 2 minutes every time a failure occurs. The quicker process of settlement helps reduce power loss duration and improve the reliability of power supply to customers.
The smart grid is being applied to the power companies of EVNSPC and even some power units in the northern provinces are studying to replicate it in the future.
Move forward to installing electronic meters
Besides the application of smart grid, EVNSPC also commences the project “Application of new technology in remote meter reading". The objective of the proposal is to widely apply the electronic meters to replace the inaccurate and labour consuming equipment, building a remote data collection system, potentially automate most of procedures including recording, analysis and transmission of data due to management needs. Members of EVNSPC especially Ben Tre and Tien Giang Power companies are launching this project.
Pham Thanh Truc, Deputy Director of Ben Tre Power Company said, so far the Company has installed electronic meters for nearly 5,000 large electricity customers and 103,000 households. 100% of customers appreciate the efficiency of the electronic meter by the accuracy and usability of the device.
According EVNSPC, the application of modern technology helps the corporation reduce 500 employees for meter reading, contribute to improving labour productivity, cost optimization, aimed at serving people and businesses better.