Automated Loop Restoration

Completed

Other Power and Storage Technologies(Electricity transmission and distribution)

Applied Research and Development

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Electrical and Electronic Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Project Contact
Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution plc (SHEPD)

Network Innovation Allowance

Ofgem

01 June 2015

01 January 2019

45 months

£241,451

Power

Scotland

Network Innovation Allowance

Project Contact, Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution plc (SHEPD)

Project Contact, Southern Electric Power Distribution plc (SEPD)

Achieve an effective reduction in CIs and CHLs over the three year trial period by 50% when compared to the base line figures for the 8 years from 2007 to 2015. No network fault to affect 100% of customers on the feeder during the trial period. Demonstrate that it is feasible to restore supplies to 50% of customers on the overhead line from Ballure substation towards Campbeltown, following a fault on the single 33kV circuit to Ballure substation. Determine the impact on network performance delivered by the automated loop restoration methodology on the trial network sections.

UK DNOs use a range of automation schemes to improve Customer Interruptions (CI) and Customer Hours Lost (CHL) performance by automatically restoring supply to sections of the network which are initially affected by a fault but do not actually have a fault within the specific section. Most of the existing automation schemes in the UK rely upon communications links to transfer data to enable the effective automatic restoration of supplies to customers. These communications links can of themselves fail and lead to a failure of the automation scheme. Or they only restore supplies to customers in healthy sections closest to the source substation. Reliable secure communications systems can be expensive to install especially in more remote and rural parts of UK DNO licensed areas. It is proposed to carry out a technical trial of the loop reconnection system developed by S&C Electric as this does not reply upon communications links for effective operation. In the event of a fault then the new Circuit Breakers (CBs) will operate automatically such that only one section of line will be left off supply with sections of the faulted line having either being restored or not affected by the interruption. If the network had an even distribution of customers and faults then the proposed scheme would automatically maintain or restore supplied to 75% of customers. If the same number of CBs were utilized without the automatic loop reconnection process then it is estimated that supplies to only 37. 5% of customers would be maintained following a fault.Note : Project Documents may be available via the ENA Smarter Networks Portal using the Website link above

09/04/18