Our search for a highly reliable, economical solution ultimately led us to VSAT. Whether they were proposing leased lines or a Frame Relay network, telecom carriers were also requiring us to install expensive isolation equipment at all our substations to protect their equipment from transient voltage. Even without considering price, we determined Frame Relay would likely result in many of the same reliability issues as leased lines because it utilizes copper lines for its last-mile connection. Radio did not meet our performance requirements and Frame Relay was determined to be too expensive. The AMP-Ohio SCADA Upgrade Task Force began its process by evaluating several different connectivity options, including Frame Relay, radio and high-speed satellite, which is commonly known as VSAT. Today, three years later, we have nearly completed the deployment of our upgraded SCADA system with a solution that combines smart meters and a high-speed satellite network from Spacenet Inc. VSAT terminal, uninterrupted power supply and communications equipment mounted and installed at an AMP-Ohio member substation. We desperately wanted a dramatic increase in data speed and reliability. ![]() The quality of our network, we learned, was only as good as the last-mile technology we deployed. The level of customer service we received from the telecom carriers was, in a word, terrible. These “landlines” had a 7 percent outage rate, which meant our technical staff was being called out far too frequently to resolve problems related to poor telephone service.Īlso, when you consider our data gathering frequency and the granularity of the collected data, you can understand how these outages led to inaccurate reads. The processor collected the data and stored it inside the system, allowing for display and calculation of data.Įarly in the decade, we concluded that leased phone lines, as a means of communicating with substations, were unreliable, expensive and moving toward obsolescence. The phone lines were connected to our Columbus, Ohio, headquarters through a front-end processor. Until recently, our SCADA system consisted of electric meters in the field, connected to remote terminal units (RTUs) and leased analog phone lines. This data also allows us to economically allocate our generation resources, thereby preventing or reducing our members’ peaking and dumping charges. The power-flow data generated by our SCADA system helps us track every member’s load, hour-by hour-revealing if they are over-committing power (dumping) or under-committing power (peaking) relative to their contracts with IOUs. We supply wholesale power and technical services to our members and also operate coal-fired facilities, hydroelectric plants and wind farms. ![]() Now in its 35th year, AMP-Ohio is a non-profit association representing 81 member municipal electric communities in Ohio, 24 in Pennsylvania, two in West Virginia and one in Michigan. We hope that CIOs at other utilities can benefit from the lessons we’ve learned during this upgrade-thereby helping them better serve their customers and make their jobs easier. After watching our data acquisition become less and less efficient, we recently completed a comprehensive upgrade of our SCADA system with the use of high-speed satellite connectivity and smart meters. ![]() Click here to enlarge imageĪt American Municipal Power-Ohio (AMP-Ohio), our SCADA system’s functionality is especially critical as it affects the operations of more than 100 municipal electric communities in four states. A growing number of these organizations are faced with an important challenge: recognizing the need to upgrade their aging SCADA infrastructure to maximize data accuracy and reliability, and reduce unnecessary costs. By Phil Meier, American Municipal Power-OhioĮlectric power cooperatives and investor-owned utilities (IOUs) nationwide have used supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems for many years to track power-flow data and ensure economical use of resources.
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