SUBSTATION AUTOMATION DEVICE AND SYSTEM
Exemplary embodiments provide separate SA system-level functionalities or tasks, which are conventionally performed by a multitude of distinct station-level devices, through a single SA device having a plurality of Processing Units (PU). The latter are either distinct Central Processing Units (CPUs) mounted on the same processor board, or distinct processing cores of a single multi-core CPU sharing the same Random Access Memory (RAM). Virtualization techniques are used in supporting multiple instances of Operating Systems (OS) on the plurality of PUs, to create distinct and mutually isolated execution environments are created. Each of these execution environments hosts a single functionality out of a Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) functionality, a gateway functionality, an engineering workplace functionality, and a firewall functionality.
1 . A Substation Automation (SA) device connected to a station bus of a substation of an electric power transmission or distribution system comprising:
multiple Processing Units (PU) on a single board as main processing hardware on which a first and a second execution environment is created by means of virtualization techniques,
wherein a first and a second functionality of a set of system-level substation functionalities, which includes Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA), gateway, engineering and firewall functionalities, is assigned to the first and to the second execution environment, respectively.
2 . The SA device according to claim 1 , wherein each of the multiple PUs is an individual Central Processing Unit (CPU), or an individual processing core of a multi-core CPU.
3 . The SA device according to claim 1 , wherein the distinct execution environments run different Operating Systems.
4 . The SA device according to claim 1 , wherein a third execution environment handles substation protection functionality.
5 . The SA device according to claim 4 , comprising:
two network interfaces for connecting to the station bus and a process bus.
6 . The SA device according to claim 1 , wherein the execution environments share hardware resources, and some of the shared resources are duplicated.
7 . A Substation Automation (SA) system for operating a substation of an electric power transmission or distribution system, comprising:
a number of Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) for protecting and controlling the substation, an SA device according to claim 1 , and a substation-wide station bus interconnecting the IEDs and the SA device.
8 . The SA system according to claim 7 , comprising:
a number of sensors for measuring process values, an SA device according to claim 4 , and a process bus interconnecting the sensors and the SA device.