A new take on substation control buildings from American Electric Power (AEP) puts a twist on the drop-in control building concept, and the application has the potential to save time and money. The idea is to streamline the installation of protection and control (P&C) deliverables on a project basis.

The first of these new modularized station control buildings, known as a Drop In Control Module (DICM), was installed July 29 by AEP in Millersport, Ohio, U.S. What makes these new buildings different is the concept's ability to streamline AEP's P&C standardization while maintaining the flexibility to conform to the constraints of each project. Instead of on-site construction, the DICM's will be assembled and acceptance tested in a factory environment. Pushing the construction to a factory saves on labor costs while creating a more uniformed fleet of P&C solutions. The manufacturer will have buildings acceptance tested before shipping. Then, upon arrival on site, AEP field P&C employees will perform functional tests. Systems Control, which built the initial DICM, will be a supplier to AEP for the DICM's going forward.

“The Drop In Control Module concept is aimed at packaging all of the required protection and control assets for installation on a project basis. AEP will begin to recognize the Drop In Control Module as a final product, similar to the way we approach a circuit breaker or a transformer,” said David Ball, AEP's director of P&C engineering and the lead for the group that developed the AEP DICM concept.

Another benefit to the modularized design is the ease of expansion. Buildings are first installed with a base module housing only the required P&C assets and the core P&C job requirements for the project. When a new project materializes, an expansion module can be built to the specifics of that project, shipped and installed quickly and efficiently.

“Let's say five years down the road AEP needed to expand the station. In the past, we would design the initial building to accommodate any future expansion. Now we can add an expansion module, build the P&C needs of that project and add it to the base module,” Ball said. “It's essentially a pay-as-you-go system.”

AEP also has developed a strategy to use the DICM concept to address P&C infrastructure needs at AEP in the future. The DICM concept builds much needed flexibility into AEP's P&C infrastructure replacement strategy.

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