Making Peace with Communications Networks: Modern and Future Network Communication for Plants and Substations

Few Power Engineers seem to be interested in becoming network engineers, yet some of the most recent significant advances in the electric power industry have come in the form of communications-assisted protection and control schemes. Communication is playing a larger role in electric power conversation. However, there remains a mystique surrounding the lowlevel details pertaining to how these communications networks operate, which often results in confusion and misinformation being taken as fact. The operational and performance data disseminated to end users are often ambiguous, seemingly focusing on arbitrary figures and numbers that lack the proper context and background needed for an engineer to make informed decisions regarding the use of such technology.