Substation Automation

SEL Engineering Services harnesses the advanced capabilities of SEL automation controllers and protective relays to consolidate, visualize, and act upon the data captured by IEDs—helping you improve substation control, protect valuable equipment, mitigate cyber threats, prevent outages, and ensure compliance with safety and security standards.

Our industry-experienced engineers will design and implement a solution that meets your specific requirements and supports the long-term health of your substation systems.

Sequential, phased design decision processes and project procedures ensure that we understand your system and what you need from it, and that we are accountable to you at every stage in the planning, management, and execution of the project.

In addition, we offer highly cost-effective, preconfigured system solutions for many typical applications. Developed with insight from 35+ years of engineering innovation and field-testing, these solutions are scalable to support future growth and compatible with a wide variety of equipment interfaces.

Key offerings:

• Human-machine interface (HMI) and alarm management implementation
• SCADA integration
• Replacement of legacy and noncompliant remote terminal units (RTUs)
• Workflow automation: event monitoring, collection, and analysis with automated reporting
• System evaluations, risk mitigation plans, and automated, audit-ready deliverables for NERC PRC standards compliance
• Condition-based monitoring (CBM) integration for asset monitoring and predictive maintenance
• Automated protection and control solutions

HMIs are an essential component of an automated substation, allowing operators to view essential information and monitor and control substation operations and related equipment.

SEL Engineering Services designs and commissions HMI, SCADA, and data integration solutions at any scale, from single substations to industrial facilities and wide-area grid operations.

Our engineers will implement an economical, high-quality substation monitoring and control system that meets your specific operational requirements. We can integrate device-based solutions into existing systems and configure and commission complete SCADA systems that integrate both new and existing equipment.

We can also replace legacy and noncompliant RTUs with SEL automation controllers, which provide flexible RTU functionality with superior reliability, extended I/O contacts, and advanced automation and control functions.

With SEL SCADA integration, HMI implementation, and automation controller solutions, you can:

• Visualize and control substation systems both locally and remotely.
• Capture critical data for root-cause analysis and advanced diagnostics with a Sequential Events Recorder (SER).
• Manage data reporting at the local and enterprise system levels.
• Increase grid stability and efficiency by using synchrophasors and phasor measurement unit (PMU) data to analyze and respond to faults and failures and prevent future problems.

SEL designs robust HMI systems that monitor the status of communications lines and logic controllers; display power system data (e.g., real power, reactive power, voltage, and current); incorporate alarm management and annunciation; and interface with IED settings for protection and control schemes.

Sequence of Events (SOE) reports and other nonoperational data can also be displayed to assist with troubleshooting and event analysis.

SEL Engineering Services implements SCADA for transmission and distribution systems and also integrates new substation automation solutions with existing SCADA systems.

We also have the expertise to design and implement special protection schemes (SPSs) and remedial action schemes (RASs) that help transmission networks achieve better stability margins and meet the challenges of integrating large renewable generation sources.

SEL provides automated protection and control solutions at the substation level, the system and process level, and the grid operations level. These solutions include cybersecure remote access and monitoring and can be fully integrated with SCADA systems.

We leverage SEL technology to implement high-speed automatic transfer topologies (such as fast bus transfer), ensuring that substation equipment is better protected and mitigating the risk of critical loads losing power.

We also implement high- and low-impedance bus differential protection schemes that provide secure fault clearing and integrated arc-flash mitigation with SEL relays.

In industrial substations, these solutions seamlessly integrate with SEL powerMAX power management and power plant control systems and our motorMAX protection and control system, allowing operators to manage a facility’s entire power system, including end devices, from a single HMI screen.

SEL digital secondary system (DSS) solutions digitize measurements from primary equipment in the field and use fiber-optic cables to transmit the data to protective relays—eliminating the cost, complexity, and safety hazards associated with running copper cabling into the control house.

SEL Engineering Services implements two types of digital secondary systems:

• A point-to-point solution using SEL Time-Domain Link (TiDL) technology, which eliminates the need for network engineering, Ethernet equipment, and external time sources—and significantly reduces exposure to cyber threats.
• A networked Sampled Values (SV) solution, which offers the flexibility of IEC 61850-9-2 and merging units with built-in protection.

If you have modern substation IEDs in place, they may already be capable of producing the data necessary for asset monitoring and predictive maintenance—and some of your primary equipment may even have come bundled with a CBM system from the vendor.

We use proven methods to integrate CBM systems from multiple vendors into a single, comprehensive asset monitoring and predictive maintenance system powered by the advanced data recording and analysis capabilities of SEL automation controllers.

These systems continuously monitor the health and condition of substation equipment, such as transformers and switchgear, reducing unexpected failures and enabling you to perform maintenance precisely when and where it’s needed.

They also provide data that can be used for root cause failure mode analysis, management of capital assets, efficiency improvement programs, and risk assessment studies.

As microprocessor-based IEDs become more integrated into the systems that protect and operate substations, workflow automation is essential to concentrate, manage, and visualize the data captured by these devices.

SEL Engineering Services designs and implements substation solutions that:

• Provide remote access, protocol translation, logic processing, and data collection, concentration, and distribution for control and operation of one substation or many.
• Decrease response times and reduce service calls with remote fault detection and location monitoring.
• Ensure the cybersecurity of automated operations with solutions that meet all applicable industry regulations.
• Automate compliance with NERC CIP and NERC PRC reporting and audit requirements.
• Enable dynamic disturbance and fault recording (DDFR) that exceeds NERC PRC-002-2 requirements.

SEL Engineering Services follows rigorous engineering procedures for design, development, testing, and commissioning of electric power systems. We continually identify, monitor, and improve best practices to ensure your satisfaction.

Our gated quality assurance process ensures that you have insight into every phase of the project and can verify that our work meets your requirements at all key stages.