Virtual substations, a key driver for digitalized grids

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Virtual substation

The future of utility grid operations has arrived–virtual substations. This new concept uses intelligent devices and software to shift substation control and protection functions to an information technology (IT) environment.

Moving time-critical and sensitive functions into the software space introduces challenges, like interoperability, which must be resolved to help ensure seamless grid operations. Yet, this new technology holds promise for more than just utilities, with data centers and advanced manufacturing facilities also showing interest.

Three benefits of a virtual substation

The broad advantage of a virtual substation is enhanced flexibility, which provides three main benefits:

  1. Simplified design and supply chain for electrical equipment – migrating the ‘brains’ from the electronics hardware into a centralized computing resource increases standardization, simplifies the supply chain for equipment manufacturers and grid operators, and limits impacts on operations.
  2. Remote, centralized substation application deployment—Moving complex logic to software for OT management is key to evolving smart grid controls. This allows remote upgrades and central deployment without physical substation visits.
  3. Digital twin enablement—Virtual substations can easily generate a digital twin because the operational code can also be used in offline simulations; this eases engineering burdens like system testing, what-if scenarios, and upgrade planning.

These three factors present the opportunity to de-risk projects and system upgrades by anticipating and testing outside the physical environment.

The biggest opportunity for virtual substations

Today, the biggest opportunity for virtual substations is with secondary substations—the tens of thousands of smaller substations that make up any utility grid. Individually, they are less complex than a primary substation, but their sheer number makes it difficult for operators to upgrade them easily or quickly. Secondary substations also connect multiple distributed energy resources and variable loads.

A virtual substation allows grid operators to control the medium-voltage (MV) side and monitor, measure, optimize, and control the low-voltage (LV) side, where consumer technologies like renewables and electric vehicle (EV) charging come into play. Flexible, incremental automation and optimization can then be deployed on a generic hardware infrastructure without being physically present in the substation itself.

Addressing interoperability

Arguably, the biggest obstacle to virtual substations is that they require substantial interoperability from many types of equipment, devices, and software.

Industry groups are emerging to take on this challenge (and others):

  • The VPAC Alliance is primarily U.S.-based and is focused on driving a common specification for primary substations and the full automation of those systems in supply- and demand-side facilities.
  • In Europe, the E4S Alliance, of which Schneider Electric is a member, is developing a standard for virtual substations. The alliance focuses on concept, specification, and prototyping to prove interoperability across different software platforms and OEM solutions. Alliance members are actively developing specialized equipment to support virtual substation implementation.

For example, Schneider Electric is developing a combination of a virtualized remote terminal unit (RTU) and LV metering based on these new standards. The next generation of our PowerLogic™ T300 platform, a physical RTU offer, is expanding to be fully virtualizable to host both the management of the MV side and the control and optimization of the LV side in a single platform.

Impact on the future of grid management

In recent years, a concerted effort has been made to centralize the intelligence for smart grid planning and operation at the central control room level. But to be truly effective, we need intelligence at both central and edge levels—with automation and optimization at every substation level and within many devices. Edge computing also provides a level of responsiveness that centralization can’t truly enable.

Local optimization and automation are crucial to making the grid smarter. Virtual substations play a key role in enabling this distributed intelligence by creating a backbone for locally deploying artificial intelligence (AI).

Digital modeling, aka digital twins, is also key, enabling much better planning, deployment, and operation at substation and grid levels. A virtual substation model can be combined into a larger grid model, which can be used to engineer and test upgrades and modifications without risking outages. It also allows testing to be started before the full physical system is in place and performs real-time simulation before the grid operator implements manual network control.

If you’d like to learn more about virtual substations, please visit us at Enlit Europe 2024, Booth 5.D10 in Milan, from Oct. 22 – 24, and spectate the panel discussion ‘Digital Reality Check’ in which I’m participating (Oct. 23rd, 10:30 AM CET, Evolve Stage, Hall 6). See you there!

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