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SCADA systems can improve grid efficiency.
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The role of SCADA systems is becoming more widely recognised. Utilities Middle East reports on the technology’s importance in ensuring an efficient grid.

As real time monitoring and control of utility networks generates increasing quantities of data, the ability to process it efficiently to ensure optimum performance has become paramount. Many industrial and infrastructure-scale enterprises depend on equipment located at multiple sites dispersed over a large geographical area, which produces vast quantities of information.

Of these, a significant proportion of large infrastructure and industrial-scale ventures use supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. According to Newton Evans, the power utility industry uses SCADA at more than 50% of their installations. Closer to home, a cursory glance at the DEWA tender board will reveal a number of tenders have recently been issued for upgrades to existing SCADA systems for substations within the emirate.

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According to the ARC Advisory Group, it estimates that global shipments of SCADA for the electrical power industry touched $1.3 billion in 2008 and could expand to $2 billion by 2010. For Oil & Gas, the figure could reach $1.3 billion by 2012.

In 2009, ABB won an order worth $63 million from the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), Saudi Arabia’s national power transmission utility, to upgrade 15 substations in the Kingdom.

The substations are spread over an area of approximately 1,000 kilometres and cover a range of voltage levels from 13.8 kV to 230 kV. The project is scheduled for completion in 2011.

ABB will provide design, engineering, supply, installation, testing and commissioning. SCADA systems will also be supplied to enable better power monitoring and control.

Clearly the role of SCADA systems, and the benefits inherent in such technology are becoming known to a wider market. At a basic level SCADA enables utility automation systems, such as power grid control, water (both desalination and network) and wastewater management to deal with more data in a timely manner, provide secure communication and reduce time-to-market.
 

Something that conventional infrastructure technologies fall short in addressing due to a lack of flexibility and limited support for dealing with large volumes of data and configuration.
 

SCADA systems also help achieve load balancing and improvement in voltage profiles, facilitate proper handling of loads, enhancing the supply of quality power, aid the identification of faults, early restoration of power, efficient planning and also the design of networks.

“When implemented correctly the SCADA technology offers great advantages,” says Lalit Zavar, business development manager, remote automation solutions at Emerson. SCADA is normally used for monitoring field assets which are remote to the plant and to provide this process data at various levels into the Management Information Systems. SCADA can be considered as the binding glue, which puts together various components of the process controls systems together.

While its advantages are well-know, Zavar believes there is still a lack of understanding of the technology, which holds back SCADA from being used more extensively. And just as importantly, improving technology is blurring the boundaries between these clearly differing systems.