In any power system, protection rules. With communications-assisted protection, the critical messages shared between devices must arrive at substation locations within specified time limits or the protection schemes won’t work. Typical communications networks work well for applications that are not time-critical, such as SCADA, engineering access, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). However, they’re too slow to meet the demands of protection for critical infrastructure.
The SEL ICON Integrated Communications Optical Network with virtual synchronous networking (VSN) is the only communications platform capable of delivering the performance necessary for today’s protection applications. Its latency, failover, and asymmetry times lead the industry; it works with Carrier Ethernet or Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS); and it allows you to operate sophisticated protection schemes like line current differential and direct transfer trip.