High-Profile Customers Demand No-Outage System: Customer Challenge

CASE STUDY
GRID CONTROL
High-Profile Customers Demand

No-Outage System
S&C Featured Solution: Self-Healing Grids
Completed installation of S&C Vista

Underground Distribution Switchgear.
Location: Orlando, Florida
Customer Challenge
A large southeastern utility was experiencing outages
on their vintage distribution system that was serving
500 high-profile commercial customers at a popular
vacation spot along International Drive. Accounting
for a peak load of 45 MW, these highly competitive
customers expected a much higher level of electrical
service reliability than what they were currently
experiencing.
At one point, they experienced as many as 16 outages
within a one year period due to main-line cable
faults. Many of the affected customers, at great risk
economically, considered a reasonable level of service
to be one outage every three to four years!
Significant improvement was needed, quickly, to
improve the satisfaction levels of these customers
and to prevent their defection to a nearby utility.
The utilitys goal was to find and implement a solution
that would yield significantly higher levels of reliability
than most customers were experiencingand to
actually exceed their expectations. A fast-track
schedule was developed, requiring that the system be
in service within a year.
Multiple approaches were considered, and of those
many were discarded since they would not produce
significant reliability improvements. The remaining
concepts formed the basis of a request for an
engineering study to review intelligent switching and
primary network alternatives.
S&C Solution
S&C Electric Companys proposal to provide not
only engineering and design services, but also the
equipment to implement the solution on a turnkey
basis was chosen.
The utilitys goal was to find and

implement a solution that would exceed
customer expectations by limiting
interruptions to just six to eight cycles.
S&Cs Power System Solutions led a team of S&C

engineers and designers along with a team of experts
to develop a system which could meet the utilitys very
high expectations.
The first step was to complete an engineering study to
ensure full understanding of the existing system and
the details required to implement the new system.
Working with the utility, S&C developed the following
design criteria:
A single contingency failure of an underground
cable must be automatically isolated, limiting
customer interruptions to six to eight cycles.
S&Cs Remote Supervisory Vista Underground Distribution Switchgear provides

high power reliability to popular vacation spot along International Drive.
November 10, 2014
www.sandc.com/services
180-1015

No-Outage System
Automatic ties must be provided to adjoining

feeders where available.
SCADA control must be provided for the entire
system.
The use of prototype components must be
avoided.
To meet these criteria S&C worked with the utility
to develop a system consisting of four closed-loop
underground feeders utilizing S&C Remote Supervisory
Vista Underground Distribution Switchgear. The mainline, 600-A loop switches in the Vista gear would be
fitted with vacuum interrupters controlled by specially
configured relays.
The key to the automation system would be its use
of transmission relaying concepts. Two pilot-wire
based schemes would be usedPOTT (Permissive
Overreaching Transfer Trip) and DCB (Directional
Current Blocking). These two schemes would ensure
that only the interrupters on either side of a faulted
cable section openall others would be blocked.
Such an arrangement would minimize the number
of customers experiencing an outage due to a cable
fault. Backup systems would also utilize POTT and DCB
schemes, which would race with the primary scheme.
The overhead system would recognize this

improvement in reliability through the installation
of S&C Scada-Mate CX Switching Systems using
S&Cs automated controls and IntelliTeam Automatic
Restoration System.
In this arrangement, the upstream protective device
isolates a fault in any section of the overhead line.
The IntelliTeam then goes into action to open only the
Scada-Mate Switches on either side of the faulted
section. It then closes a tie to an alternate feeder. The
result is restoration of service to all except the faulted
feeder section. This unique peer-to-peer distributed
intelligence system does not require intervention of
a system dispatcher. Its the only way the one-minute
restoration goal could have been achieved.
S&C Vista Underground Distribution Switchgear

units placed along International Drive.
Since the underground loops would have many Vista

switchgear units in a series, simple time-current
coordination would not be sufficient to provide
coordinated operation of the system. Thus, both the
primary and backup schemes would need to utilize
high-speed fiber-optic communications.
In addition to the methods discussed above, schemes
were devised to protect against bus faults in the
switchgear, misoperation of load-tap interrupters,
misoperation of cable elbows, and even outages at the
utility source substations. Even a provision to transfer
the critical customers load to alternate sources on
adjacent feeders would be provided should an entire
loop lose power for some reason.
Besides the very critical underground loops in the
system described above, there are two overhead radial
circuits on the system that needed significant reliability
improvement as well. But since overhead circuits
typically have loads feeding from the lines between
switching points, a no-outage solution would not be
practical. The design criterion in this instance would
be that a fault on an overhead section of the system
must be automatically isolated, and service restored
to customers served by the remainder of the system
within one minute.
November 10, 2014
180-1015

No-Outage System
S&C worked in concert with the utility to engineer

and supply this unique solution. Major phases of the
project included:
Project management
Engineering studies
Design and development of the closed-loop
automation system
Equipment procurement
Valued Outcome
The result of the entire teams effort was the delivery
of a revolutionary distribution automation system that
has and will provide reliability into the future.
The system was engineered, designed, procured,
configured, delivered, installed, tested, and put in
service in approximately one year to meet the utilitys
aggressive schedule.
Most importantly, the 45 MW load represented by the
affected customers remains on the serving utilitys
system. Bottom line: Business was retained and the
business development opportunities for this utility were
enhanced because they can now offer a level of service
unmatched in the industry.
Communications design
System configuration and commissioning
Programming
Factory acceptance testing
Site acceptance testing
Documentation
Training
In an effort to reduce field setup time and verify the
fault-clearing time and SCADA scan rate, all electronic
components were sent to S&Cs testing facility in
Chicago, IL. There, representatives from both S&C and
the utility worked for a week to check timing and adjust
settings. Loss of voltage tests were conducted to test
the systems intelligent switching portion by bypassing
each overhead switch to ensure they were closing
and reclosing in the correct sequence and within the
allowed-time criteria. These tests played an extremely
important role in building confidence, and training and
adapting the automated system.
November 10, 2014
180-1015

High-Profile Customers Demand No-Outage System: Customer Challenge

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CASE STUDY

High-Profile Customers Demand

Completed installation of S&C Vista

Location: Orlando, Florida

The utilitys goal was to find and

S&Cs Power System Solutions led a team of S&C

S&Cs Remote Supervisory Vista Underground Distribution Switchgear provides

High-Profile Customers Demand

Automatic ties must be provided to adjoining

The overhead system would recognize this

S&C Vista Underground Distribution Switchgear

Since the underground loops would have many Vista

High-Profile Customers Demand

S&C worked in concert with the utility to engineer

November 10, 2014

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