America needs more power. Safe, resilient and cost-effective power that is. Energy demand in the United States is increasing, driven by society's shift away from fossil fuels, the adoption of electric transportation becoming more prevalent and broader access to technology, specifically the need for more data. To meet rising demand and maintain a safe, resilient and cost-effective energy grid, utilities and service providers are exploring digital substations.
In an article earlier this year, T&D World explored how digital substations are a game-changer for grid operators. Looking to the future, technological advancements will make digital substations leaner, faster and more sustainable. At their core, digital substations help create a safer work environment by eliminating electrical connections between power equipment and control panels. This helps protect workers and reduces overall substation costs, including construction, engineering, commissioning, operation and maintenance. Additionally, digital substation solutions are a cornerstone technology for smarter grids, allowing for seamless integration between devices through communication. Combined with improved data quality and faster response times provided by new technologies, this enables digital substations to further enhance safety in emergencies.
Today, digital substations enhance grid management by offering superior monitoring and control to be more reliable and resilient. They enable rapid integration of renewable and distributed energy sources through digital controls, improving grid adaptability when supply and demand changes. Digital substations leverage virtual communication tools and advanced technologies to monitor equipment in real time, predict maintenance needs, and quickly detect faults. This helps prevent failures and contributes to keeping the power grid running smoothly. It minimizes maintenance needs, reduces switchyard space and eliminates tons of cabling. This leads to shorter installation times and increases reliability, helping prevent outages. All of this can be done while also reducing installation time by up to 50% and project costs by 10-15% thanks to a simpler design, reduced copper wiring (up to 80%), fewer components, enhanced testing procedures and physical space savings.
That is Today. Where is the Grid Going Next?
ABB is committed to moving the energy grid to the 21st century by utilizing higher computing power available today and Artificial Intelligence (AI). ABB’s Digital Systems Center builds on these advancements by integrating cutting-edge electrical technology with centralized protection and control, merging units, digital sensors, AI capabilities, cloud computing and digital control houses. This empowers grid operators with real-time, insightful data for informed decision-making, while predictive algorithms optimize maintenance and asset management. Data is now collected and stored in one central location, which allows systems to communicate with one another faster. This enables faster recovery when a system is down, but more importantly, data can be fed to AI and, through machine learning, can predict where the next fault will occur - with stunning accuracy. Experience has shown that predictable fault prediction with AI is 90% accurate on a weekly horizon of collected data, allowing system operators to predict the health of a system and prevent an outage.
What’s Driving Change?
External dynamics are causing fundamental changes to the energy sector. Unprecedented load growth, accelerating weather events and increased interest rates are just some of the challenges utilities are facing. As a result, operational and maintenance costs, CapEx investments and the ability to upgrade existing systems and equipment are all areas of focus to improve grid resiliency and reliability.
Many of these focus areas are being addressed by digitalizing substations which better adapt to changing sources of energy generation like renewables and enable predictive failure analysis to achieve better resiliency of the grid, which is a key objective for utilities. The digitalization of substations is vital to the smart energy grid and can address the following needs:
- Centralized and virtualized protection and control: By centralizing substation protection and control functions into a single device or software, design and engineering are simplified by reducing equipment and wiring needs. This not only lowers costs but also enhances reliability and makes maintenance easier. A virtualized solution offers even greater flexibility by allowing installation on standard and more powerful servers, eliminating the need for specialized hardware.
- Fleet management: Managing a fleet of substation devices is streamlined with ABB's advanced digital asset management tool. This cloud-based platform provides a centralized hub for monitoring and controlling all protection and control devices across multiple substations. It offers real-time insights into device health, performance, and configuration, enabling proactive maintenance and reducing the risk of unplanned outages.
- Predictive maintenance with AI: Fault prediction solution that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to better manage assets. By analyzing data from multiple sources, the advanced digital asset management tool can predict potential faults before they occur. This allows utilities to schedule maintenance proactively, minimizing downtime and maximizing the lifespan of substation equipment.
- Integrated expertise: Digital systems seamlessly integrate various substation functions, including protection, control, and measurement. This integration simplifies communication between devices, reduces the need for complex wiring, and enables faster data exchange. The result is a more efficient and reliable substation that can adapt to changing grid conditions.
Moving Energy to the 21st Century
Integrating digital technology to advance the efficiency and reliability of substations provides benefits across the utility sector. From workforce to sustainability to better leveraging data, digital technology is enabling a new frontier for utilities. AI and machine learning present opportunities to attract a new and more diverse workforce with computer software engineers, data scientists, and automation technicians, which will be the next generation of protection and control specialists for the utility industry. Reduced physical footprint and asset simplification increase sustainability while lowering operational costs. Most importantly, the central location of data and using AI to predict the health of an entire system will enable utilities to minimize disruption, respond faster and build a future that is safe, resilient and cost-effective in order to meet the energy demands of tomorrow.
