Advancing to true station and distribution system integration in electric utilities

The proliferation of microprocessor-based digital Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) in electric utility systems has seen an increase in the capability of these IEDs for advanced communications, mostly for monitoring reasons. However, a multitude of proprietary and de facto standard communication protocols used by the IEDs has prevented utilities from achieving true and total integration of protection, control and data acquisition functions. The main problem is achieving interoperability among a diverse group of IEDs and functions, which has made costs of integration prohibitive, especially further down the electric network along distribution feeders and to customer interfaces. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) of the USA is in the process of recommending a standard for IED communications in electric utilities.