Many challenges
Ms. Do Nguyet Anh – Standing Deputy General Director of EVNNPC said that during recent years, the Corporation has developed, upgraded its telecommunication and information technology infrastructure, and applied scientific and technological advances to the governance and management of production and business activities; thereby contributing to saving manpower, increasing labor productivity, and optimizing costs in power business activities.
In the field of power grid automation, EVNNPC has put into operation 11 remote control centers to monitor and control 110kV substations and medium voltage power grids in distance. Since June 2015, the Corporation has applied the GIS system in power grid management in every high voltage power branches/departments.
Despite significant progresses, the extent of grid automation of EVNNPC is still not high. Most of the substations are obsolete and in operation for many years; primary and secondary equipment are outdated and of many different types, which can hardly support remote control protocols. In order to meet requirements of remote data acquisition, control and monitoring, it is necessary to urgently renovate, upgrade and replace most of the primary and secondary equipment, which will require huge investment capital
The power supply interruption for rehabilitating substation equipment is also very difficult due to the need for uninterrupted power supply and the pressure on realizing power supply reliability indicators. In addition, power grids in many areas have not reached the N-1 criterion, many 110kV substations when being shut down for rehabilitation caused power outages; the renovation, completion and upgrading of signals, testing of connection from substations to control centers take a lot of time, etc.
Yen Phong 110kV Substation (Bac Ninh) is the first substation being operated under the unmanned model (February 2017).
To achieve the target of 100% substations being remotely controlled
Determining clearly the application of scientific and technological advances, especially those of the industrial revolution 4.0, in power production and business activities, in which the grid automation is one of the important tasks, EVNNPC has been adopting synchronous solutions to expedite this roadmap.
The Corporation sets a target that by 2022, 100% of 110kV substation in 27 provinces and cities in the North will be controlled remotely and operated as unmanned substations; step by step digitizing all the elements of the power grid, contributing to improving electricity quality and labor productivity, etc.
To this end, in 2019, the Corporation strives to complete the installation of 16 remote control centers, bringing the total number of remote control centers to 25. In addition, substations being put into operation in 2019 are required to have remote control feature. As for the previously built substations, the Corporation plans to renovate and replace equipment, meeting remote control and unmanned operation requirements.
EVNNPC has been upgrading the integrated customer management system (CRM), exploiting and acquiring data from remote control, remote reading and customer care centers. The Corporation keeps on completing its telecommunication network, connection lines, IT infrastructure for remote control centers and unmanned substations; expanding the GIS – based power grid management system to every low voltage grid.
The Corporation will apply Big data technology to the smart grid, with special attention paid to the function of predicting impacts of weather conditions on the grid operation, calculating and soundly operating the grid according to seasonal load curves, based on data collected online together with the existing data. It will study and develop software to assist the repair of power equipment, power grids; building a smart grid system capable of self-restoring and self-isolating incidents, etc.
The Corporation will study and install sensors to monitor the operation of equipment (including medium voltage ones), based on analyzing, forecasting, assessing and adopting communication technologies to link equipment (IoT), thereby the equipment can itself give a warning about the operation situation, overhaul and maintenance plans in the coming time, towards optimizing the operation as well as equipment lifetime.