GE Multilin announced the release of the C70, Shunt Capacitor Bank protection, control, automation and monitoring system. The C70 is an advanced protection and control system for shunt capacitor banks facilitating reliable supply of reactive power to the power grids thereby improving the power factor of the grid, reducing network losses and improving voltage stability of the system.

General-purpose protection devices do not provide sufficient protection to crucial shunt capacitor banks. C70 was built exclusively for meeting the unique requirements of these capacitor banks. Utilities can now maximize the performance of their capacitor banks and achieve significant savings.

The C70 is a truly convergent platform comprising of different functions in one box eliminating the need to have multiple stranded products thereby saving a significant investment to the end user in engineering, commissioning, installation and on the lifetime costs.

The C70 provides both the bank and system protection schemes for shunt capacitor banks. The current and voltage-based protection functions are designed to provide sensitive protection for grounded, ungrounded single and parallel capacitor banks and banks with taps, for a variety of capacitor bank configurations. Combined with the sophisticated built-in control functions switching of capacitor banks can be achieved with relative ease and flexibility for automatic voltage regulation.

The C70 comes with advanced embedded communication capabilities with an array of protocols for device communications including IEC61850, DNP3.0, Modbus and IEC60870-5-104. The latest IEC61850 utility communication protocol is embedded in C70, a big differentiator from other vendor products, which require additional protocol converters. More than 500 UR products, with embedded 61850 protocol, are in service for various projects across the globe.