Implementation of UCA/IEC 61850 for Substation Automation in Grant County Public Utility District

Grant County Public Utility District (The District) is a consumer owned utility in central Washington State that initiated a substation modernization program beginning in 2001. In order to minimize the risk associated with introducing modern substation automation technology into this utility, the District undertook a detailed investigation of two different approaches in order to determine which technologies would serve their needs best. These approaches included the evaluation of DNP and UCA technology. The District first evaluated these technologies in a lab environment using a variety of devices and then installed devices in the first substation as a pilot. The paper described the motivation for the project, the testing that was done, and the pilot implementation. The paper also presents the results of these activities and includes a description of the plan that were implemented to deploy IEC 61850 across the system in the future