Mehrdod Mohseni, SchlumbergerSema

In 1999, LADWP initiated a comprehensive assessment of all department control systems. The assessment uncovered a number of systems that could be improved by replacing the existing supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system with substation and distribution automation. The benefits of the upgrade included maintaining the integrity of power system control, saving money, decreasing the duration of customer outages and permitting easy access to valuable power system information. Thus, the Energy Control Upgrade Project, including substation automation, was chartered.

LADWP chose a substation automation integrator through a competitive, request-for-proposal process. After a lengthy evaluation, SchlumbergerSema was selected.

The upgrade to automation involves replacement of remote terminal units (RTUs), replacing most electromechanical protective relays with intelligent electronic devices (IEDs), providing a human-machine interface (HMI), installing a substation LAN and networking the substation to a dedicated SCADA/control system WAN.

SchlumbergerSema will design, assemble, program and deliver equipment racks for the RTUs, HMI, communications and IEDs, which will be installed and tested by LADWP personnel. The process will be repeated for 179 substations, two to four at a time, over the next five years.

All of the substations with existing RTUs in the city of Los Angeles are included in the project. Four additional switching stations owned by LADWP located outside of the city are not included, but they may possibly be upgraded at a later date. Of the 179 included, four are transmission switching stations, 21 are receiving stations (transmission to 34.5 kV subtransmission), 125 are distributing stations (subtransmission to 4.8 kV subtransmission) and 29 are customer stations (34.5 kV).

"Technology advancements have been creeping up, and the price creeping down, to a point where we could no longer ignore the viability of automating the substations," said Jack Waizenegger, project manager with LADWP. "The project is designed with ROI in mind. With improvements in operating and maintenance efficiencies, customer reliability and easier access to power system information for planning and maintenance management, LADWP is confident the project will improve upon the quality of our operational efficiencies."

LADWP also looks to the project to maintain control system integrity by improving the SCADA/RTU availability rate and providing expansion capacity.

LADWP's Energy Control System Upgrade Project represents one of the largest substation automation projects in the world. SchlumbergerSema will work with technology provider Tasnet to provide RTUs and HMIs, Allen-Bradley PLCs, Schweitzer and Alstom IEDs, and GE JMUXs.

Deployment of the system is scheduled to being in late 2002, and is expected to take up to five years to complete.

Mohseni is director of marketing for the North American geomarket for SchlumbergerSema.