Concept: Siemens Energy (Siemens) has unveiled SenseSolution, which it claims to be the world’s first power transmission solution with cloud connectivity and a dedicated web application suite. It facilitates secure transmission of substation data to the cloud to help operators evaluate, monitor, support system operations in real-time.
Nature of Disruption: SensSolution transfers all available data from substations to a cloud-based platform where operators can browse various applications and dashboards to get a better understanding of a system’s current state. This allows operators to plan and make the best choices to ensure optimal operation, deal with impending failures, schedule maintenance, and make long-term investment decisions. The operators can receive alarms in the event of critical incidents and can directly access the tailored findings on SensSolution site regardless of their location. By knowing the precise state of all power transmission facilities in the system, operators would be able to improve the total availability and stability of their systems. Operators can choose to share substation data with various operations, maintenance, and planning teams. With a single click, specific visualizations and reports can be generated, which allows for a new level of streamlined support and collaboration when dealing with urgent issues and maintenance tasks. To keep the whole process secure, end-to-end encryption is implemented while transmitting the operational data leveraging a secure gateway from a substation to the cloud. One-way access ensures that data only flows in one direction and that the HVDC control system is never exposed to the outside environment. Siemens claims that any intrusion into the substation from the internet is seemingly impossible with the substation’s full physical isolation.
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Outlook: The growing share of renewables in the energy grid along with their unpredictable feed-ins are key obstacles for transmission grid operators. The intelligent use of data generated in substations can help operators overcome the challenges. Siemens boasts that SensSolution is the next logical step in its journey to unlock the potential of digitalization in energy transmission. It has plans to implement SensSolution to its entire transmission solutions portfolio beginning with high-voltage direct current systems (HVDC). This enables the exchange of electricity between different locations, which ensures that even renewable energy resources can be used in the most efficient ways and energy is transmitted to where it is needed.
This article was originally published in Verdict.co.uk
