Power Delivery System Integration and Automation at Overton Power District No. 5 Overton, Nevada

Overton Power District No. 5 (OPD5), substation wanted to make investments in their system to help ensure that their billing rates remained attractive and the quality of delivered electric service met or exceeded customer expectations. Fiscally responsible operation and management of the system was another important goal which presented several challenges. Lack of both communication and remote operation created delays in restoring service after transmission breaker lockouts, lockouts that also affected other power systems. Other challenges included: high overtime work expenses during line maintenance procedures; slow response times between computers in separate business offices; repeated lockups in office printers; engineering functions without access to Internet resources; and limited local phone service. OPD5 management began the search for a system integration project that would provide communications infrastructure, communications terminal hardware, substation connectivity between varied intelligent electronic devices (IEDs), and a strategic plan for human machine interfaces (HMIs). Criteria used for the evaluation included: proprietary versus nonproprietary communications protocol, demonstrated capability to integrate existing IEDs, and cost. The SCADA/EMS developed for this project includes a virtual private network (VPN) to provide the operations teams secure access to system data from key locations. The locations for viewing the data include general offices, substations, and the homes of on-call technical staff. On a contractual basis, the system integrator has secure administrative access to the SCADA/EMS, which enables the integrator to respond to OPD5 requests for technical support and further system development