Advanced Distribution Automation for a Smart Grid Environment

Abstract

Everyone is looking to “the Smart Grid” to provide electric utilities with information age technologies that will significantly improve distribution system protection, reliability, operating efficiencies, power quality, safety, and customer satisfaction. These technologies are now readily available in mature and sophisticated products that make it easier than ever for an electric utility to implement elegant protection coordination schemes at the distribution level complete with advanced Distribution Automation (DA). This white paper discusses some of the most useful of these technologies, including pulse reclosing, and describes how they can be used effectively to install an advanced Distribution Automation System based on practical experiences and successful implementations. The benefits of such a system are enormous and will directly improve an electric utility’s reliability figures (SAIDI, SAIFI and CAIDI) and reduce momentary operations (MAIFI).