IED data utilization for operations, protection and maintenance

To improve monitoring, control and protection of the power system new intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) have to be installed in substations. IED devices are capable of recording a huge amount of data and providing much more information than earlier when only electromechanical relays and remote terminal units (RTUs) of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system were used. If data from different IEDs is integrated and automatically analyzed, full advantage of the data may be taken. Extracted information obtained from data recorded by each device through automated processing can be merged in customized reports and sent directly to different utility groups. The data may be preprocessed and sent to the control center as additional data for new applications or redundant data for improvement of existing applications. IED data employed in this way can drastically improve efficiency and decision making capabilities of the utility personnel responsible for analyzing faults, reporting nature of disturbances, repairing damaged equipment and restoring the system.