Providing electrical system control for an industrial site

Monitoring and control of a large industrial site has previously required a wall mimic to be used. These can be quite large, depending on the size of the system, and do not provide a great deal of functionality, only allowing the user to have an overview of the system and an indication of circuit breaker positions. The circuit breaker can be controlled using switches located near the breaker representation. Measurements, of current, voltage and power, can be provided using standard instruments. With the advent of personal computers and reliable operating systems there is now the capability to offer this functionality from a standard PC. A great deal of additional functionality can be achieved using a PC based solution. Alarm management, trending of measurements and disturbance analysis are some of the features which can be realised. This paper details the practical application of a control system for monitoring and controlling the distribution system around a large industrial site of the Bridgewater Paper Company