| When it
comes to the activities, plans and usage patterns for energy
management systems (EMS) and supervisory control and data
acquisition (SCADA) systems, there is quite a bit of disparity
among utilities in Eastern and Western Europe. This disparity
extends to technology suppliers as well. There is also a sharp
contrast in available funding for upgrading and replacing
older technology. I believe this disparity will hinder several
major utilities in Eastern European countries to become "year
2000 ready."
My uneasiness stems
from the findings of a recent Newton-Evans study of 68 Eastern
European (primarily Russian) utilities and several dozen
Western European utilities. The differences in the two groups
are quite revealing.
SCADA operating
systems comprise one such area of difference. While Eastern
and Western European utilities continue to look favorably on
UNIX, the West has moved on to windows NT and Windows 98 as
preferred operating environments, while Eastern Europe remains
interested in Windows 95. This finding reveals a lag in the
spread of software technology from West to East.
In the area of
communications and system linkages, we again see several
differences in philosophy. Within the Eastern European
countries, linkages to other EMS or SCADA systems were in
place at about 35% of the sites. In the parallel study of
Western European utilities, external linkage was available in
utilities at nearly double the rate for the East. Russian
utilities are typically reliant on one or two unique,
country-specific protocols for all of their communications
between control centers and from master stations to remote
terminal units (RTUs). Use of Western and international
standard protocols is non-existent.
The "closed" nature
of the communications protocols in use in eastern European
countries versus the movement to "open" communications
protocols in the West is yet another contrast in the
application of control center technology.
As far as EMS
application status and plans are concerned, almost all (95%)
of the Eastern European community is performing some level of
energy accounting functions with their current EMS. Eighty
percent are also performing product cost analysis, while 68%
use the system to schedule maintenance activities. This same
percentage was also performing two security analysis
applications, including short circuit analysis and state
estimation. In the Western European community, three security
analysis applications were the most widely used of all 25 EMS
applications listed on the survey. These applications were
state estimation, (used by 61% of the 67 utilities); operator
load flow (54%); and contingency analysis (48%).
Again, a sharp
contrast is evident in that the Eastern European view looks
surprisingly similar to the Western view of about 10 years
ago. Perhaps that should not come as a surprise after all
since different priorities were in place at the beginning of
the 1990s for these countries.
On a more positive
note, almost all of the 67 Eastern European utilities from
five countries were accomplishing operating data acquisition
and breaker controls. More than one-half are already improving
their energy production planning with the assistance of SCADA
information. Forty-five percent are able to perform a load
shedding function, but the ability to isolate faults and train
new operators is lagging with only 22% of the utilities
indicating these capabilities.
The discrepancy
between East and West continues with RTU technology and
applications. Eighty-one percent of Eastern European officials
expressed a desire for new RTU capabilities. This contrasts
sharply with only 42% of Western European respondents looking
for new capabilities. Many Western European utilities are
technically advanced in this area and are looking for the
ability to interface existing RTUs to other intelligent slave
devices, increase local automatic functions, add programmable
logic controllers (PLC)-like functionality within the RTU and
increase the use of PLCs in their data acquisition resource
mix.
I think that it is
fair to say that sharp differences will likely continue
between Eastern and Western European utilities in their use
of, and plans for, operational control and monitoring systems.
A substantial reason for the contrast is lack of available
funding and the resulting low-level interest shown to the
Eastern European utilities by the more technologically
advanced Western-based suppliers. This disparity could be
short lived if lower cost, "desk-top" applications can be
provided, and if, in turn, Russian and other Eastern European
energy ministries accept the concept of open communications
protocols. Most importantly , private sector development of
systems integration companies and data acquisition device
manufacturers must be encouraged.
Unfortunately, it
appears that Russian utilities and some other Eastern European
utilities are stuck in the 1980s or, at best, early 1990s,
with respect to control center technology. Russian officials
understand new technology developments and are aware of what's
available in the West, but they have to face the ongoing
reality of lack of appropriate funding.
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