In a bid to increase the limited pool of expertise in the national energy sector, the Electrical Engineering Department is establishing the Substation Automation and Energy Management Centre.
The centre, which will be based at the Bellville campus, will be headed by Prof Raynitchka Tzoneva, who is also the leader of the National Research Foundation (NRF) niche area ‘Real-Time Distributed Systems’.
Prof Tzoneva said the move to establish the centre comes after the International Electrical Commission (IEC) put in place the new IEC 61850 standards, which govern the building, implementation and operations of Substation Automation Systems.
These systems are highly complex computer systems, which are used by operators in the energy sector to control substations.
Prof Tzoneva said a substation can be defined as a node in an electrical power network where lines and cables are connected for transmission and distribution of electric power. A substation has the capability of transforming electricity, usually from high to low voltage for distribution by a low-voltage network. Most substations have one or more transformers and may have many other functions as well, such as switching, breaking and protection capabilities
However, she said there are few South Africans who have expertise in Substation Automation Systems and the new IEC 61850 standards.
“South Africa has no knowledge of this new way of building Substation Automation Systems. We see the necessity to start working with this new standard and have thus put together the center,” said Prof Tzoneva.
The centre will act as an enabler for education, training, testing, research and development in the in the new technologies, which can help to upgrade and optimize power systems in South Africa as well as the implementation of the various standards which have been set by the IEC.
The centre has also approached Prof Alexander Apostolov, a world class specialist in Substation Automation and one of the creators of the new substation automation technology, to assist in its operations. Prof Apostolov will regularly visit the centre and also co-supervise postgraduate students.
The work of the centre is supported by Eskom, consulting and design organisations, City of Cape Town and vendors such as ABB, Siemens and SEL.
Prof Tzoneva said a group of more than 20 students who are part of the Real-Time Distributed Systems research area will be involved in the centre.
One of the projects they will look at is the revamp of 13 substations at the CPUT Bellville campus reticulation network. The existing network was established in 1986 and is currently still feeding the campus network. However, the network has reached its expected lifetime.
“This is going to be a unique project. Students will work with designers and vendors to implement a project that will benefit the CPUT community,” she said.
All the substations will also be linked to the centre, which will automatically monitor and control the network operations, and will give students access to real-time data for their research projects.
Prof Tzoneva said the students, who refer to themselves as the “Control Group” are doing excellent work in several other research areas.
Prof Tzoneva said from a research and development perspective, the centre could act as a forum for dialogue between universities, vendors, municipalities, and Eskom to work together to build knowledge transfer systems to enable broad-based development of critical expertise to meet industrial needs.
By Candes Keating
Photographs: (top right) Prof Raynitchka Tzoneva and Prof Alexander Apostolov (bottom right) The Control Group (left) Members of the Control Group work on a device
Written by CPUT News
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