Electrical substation monitoring and diagnostics
View Patent ↗A substation intelligence system ( 104 ) includes a substation computer ( 105 ) which is operatively connected to a plurality of field devices ( 102 ) through an input/output subsystem ( 204 ). Data indicative of the devices is stored in a substation database ( 208 ). Advanced monitoring and/or diagnostics ( 107 ) use information from the database to perform various monitoring and/or diagnostic functions.
1. A tangible computer readable storage medium containing instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry out a method comprising:
retrieving data relevant to a first field device from a plurality of different databases in a substation intelligence system database system;
storing the retrieved data relevant to the first field device in a single data structure in the substation intelligence system database system;
retrieving data relevant to a second field device from the different databases in the substation intelligence system database system; and
storing the retrieved data relevant to the second field device in the data structure; and
wherein the retrieved data relevant to the first field device is stored in a first data unit within the data structure and the retrieved data relevant to the second field device is stored in a second data unit within the data structure.
2. The computer readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein the method further comprises communicating information from the database system to a human machine interface over a communications network.
3. The computer readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the retrieved data relevant to the first and second field devices includes real time data.
4. The computer readable storage medium of claim 3 wherein the retrieved data relevant to the first and second field devices includes non operational data relating to a condition of one of the first and second field devices.
5. The computer readable storage medium of claim 3 wherein the retrieved data relevant to the first and second field devices includes at least one of historical data and alarm data.
6. The computer readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein the one or more analysis functions includes a field device predicative maintenance identification function.
7. The computer readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein the one or more analysis functions includes a field device incipient fault identification function.
8. The computer readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein the one or more analysis functions includes a field device reliability index calculation function.
9. The computer readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein the one or more analysis functions includes a fault diagnosis function.
10. The computer readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein the first and second field devices include at least one of an IED, a transformer, a circuit breaker, a feeder cable, and a capacitor bank.
11. The computer readable storage medium of claim 1 wherein the computer readable storage medium is part of a substation intelligence system that includes one or more of a substation automation system, a distribution automation system, and a feeder automation system.
12. A method comprising:
retrieving data relevant to a first field device from a plurality of different databases in a substation intelligence system database system;
storing the retrieved data relevant to the first field device in a single data structure in the substation intelligence system database system;
retrieving data relevant to a second field device from the different databases in the substation intelligence system database system; and
storing the retrieved data relevant to the second field device in the data structure; and
wherein the retrieved data relevant to the first field device is stored in a first data unit within the data structure and the retrieved data relevant to the second field device is stored in a second data unit within the data structure.
13. The method of claim 12 further comprising performing at least one of a substation monitoring function and a substation diagnostic function using the stored data.
14. The method of claim 13 wherein the performance of the at least one function occurs at a remote location, and wherein the method further comprises transferring the stored data to the remote location over a wide area network.
15. The method of claim 12 wherein the data structure includes operational and non-operational data.
16. The method of claim 12 wherein storing includes storing the data structure in a computer readable memory located at the substation.