International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)

ISSN: 2278-0181
Vol. 3 Issue 11, November-2014

Automation of 11kv Substation using PLC and

SCADA at GNDEC, Ludhiana: A Case Study
Harpreet Kaur¹ Prof. Harmeet Singh Gill²
Student (M.Tech, Power Engg.) Assistant Professor
Dept. of Electrical Engineering Dept. of Electrical Engineering
Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College
Ludhiana, India Ludhiana, India

Abstract-. The paper presents the use of SCADA (Supervisory Automation at the substation is done by the use of
Control and Data Acquisition) and PLC (programmable logic programmable logic controller (PLC) and supervisory control
controller) in substation for the purpose of automation. At the and data acquisition (SCADA) instead of electromechanical
substation the power is managed between the generator set and devices. As the technology advances the human involvement
the main incomer supply. In the power management, the control
become less and degree of automation will correspondingly
of low voltage and turn on the generator set automatically which
is installed at the substation in case of low voltage and monitors get greater. Now, in global economy automation employs an
all electrical parameters on PC by using SCADA is done. PLC increasing important role in our daily life.
is a programmable logic controller which controls the voltage in
substation. SCADA define as a centralized system that control II. PLC AND SCADA
and monitor the whole substation. SCADA system interact with
PLC for the implementation of whole process. The application PLC is a solid state device stands for Programmable Logic
implemented in PLC is on ladder logic using unity pro software Control. The function of the PLC is to performs the various
RT
and SCADA software used is vijeo citect . logic function previously accomplished by the devices such
as electromechanical relays, switches for the control and
Keywords— SCADA and PLC.
operation of equipment. It is control system designed for the
automation. The PLC is real computer in which it is capable
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I. INTRODUCTION
of receiving data via inputs their sending commands by its
Substations forms a very important node in the transmission output Even though the electromechanical relay have served
and the distribution of electrical power system. Substation is good for many generation, often under adverse condition, but
the most important part of the power system, also needs the devolpment of modern technology equipments requires
automation. The main function of substation is to receive faster response, which electromechanical relays cannot offer.
energy transmitted at high voltage from the generating station Most of the PLC programmed works on the “on” and “off”
to a value appropriate for local distribution and provide state and these corresponds to true or false in logical form
facilities for switching. A substation is the convenient place and 0 and 1 in binary form. There are different types of PLC
for setting up the synchronous condenser at the end of available in market such as Siemens, Schneider, Omron etc.
transmission line for the purpose of power factor we are using the Schneider PLC for the automation purposes
improvement. The combination of all the equipments which because the simulation can be done without connecting the
are used to change the characteristics (e.g. voltage, frequency, PLC but this is not possible in case of Siemens. PLC can
p.f, etc.) of electrical supply is known as substation. transfer collected data to other devices and receive data and
Automation is the process of automatically controlling the control commands from various devices by a serial port.
process parameters in the plant with the help of automation There are also different types of the Schneider PLC which are
devices. In the beginning, process at the plants was as under:
supervised manually based on the instrument installed in a. Twido PLC
fields. This requires the plant supervisor to be placed in plant b. ZELIO PLC
at all time. But the automation has helped to overcome this c. M340 PLC
problem. Now, in global economy automation plays
increasingly important role. Automation doesn’t necessarily Among the different types of PLC we are using M340 PLC as
imply computerization, it can be pneumatic, mechanical, it has many advantages over the Twido and ZELIO PLC. In
electronic or combination of all these. It is not only a part of the M340 PLC we can increase the number of input and
industry today. The process in the substation includes the data output by increasing the number of racks. A PLC can be
acquisition, supervision of power system, and control of programmed to sense, control and activate various
power system equipments. All these processes work equipments. Thus, PLC includes a number of input output
collectively in a coordinated automatic mode. The signals or points which allow interfacing of electrical signals. First the
the message is produced automatically and then delivered in input and output components are connected to PLC and then
the same manner as the field supervisor provided commands. the control program is loaded onto PLC memory.

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 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
Vol. 3 Issue 11, November-2014

SCADA III. PROBLEM FORMULATION

SCADA is abbreviated as Supervisory Control and Data
Acquisition. SCADA is defined as the system that gathers The literature review reveals that researches faced difficulty
data or information from different devices located at, plant in the substation using conventional methods like manual
and then send this information to computer.SCADA is supervision, hardwired control etc. Because in manual
nothing but the graphical representation of automation. It is supervision of the equipment it required a supervisor to be
large scale control system for automated process. SCADA in placed in close locality of substation and turn on the
the power system is defined as under: generator manually when the incomer voltage to the
substation is low. In manually supervision the chances of
Data Acquisition: Acquisition of data means to collect or errors are more. Hardwired systems were too bulky to be
gathering the information. The collected information is in designed. These difficulties are over come by using PLC and
type of measured values of current or voltage and the status SCADA. At the substation major problems is that when the
of various equipments. The gathered information is being incoming voltage to the substation is low the existing system
used locally or sent to another device for use by operator for will not detect the low voltage and will not turn on the
the future planners. generator automatically as it leads to poor performance of
various equipments. Main objective of the work:
Supervision: The operator or substation supervisor monitor 1. Automatic on the generator when the voltage is low.
and supervise the condition and the status of various 2. Automatically monitoring all the electrical
electrical or substation equipment through this collected data. parameters of the substation like the phase to phase
Substation supervisor engineers monitor the information on voltage, current, kilowatt hour consumption on PC.
computer screens.
IV. METHODOLOGY
Control: Control means giving commands to various devices First of all existing set up is to be studied The choice of PLC
to perform operation on them. Traditional SCADA systems regarding its input and output is to be considered. The ratings
depend on supervisor to supervise the system and generate of PLC is M340. The PLC is programmed according to the
signals The devices in the substation can be controlled by the network. The ladder programming for PLC is being used for
field supervisor through push buttons or a laptop computer. various operations and introduce in the thesis work. So the
SCADA is studied in general and implemented for online
RT
Devices in SCADA system are: monitoring of substation. Vijeo citect software is being used
a) Human Machine Interface (HMI) or MMI (man for the SCADA and unity pro software is used for PLC
machine interface) is the device by which the programming.
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processed data is presented to the any person or

operator. With the help of this processed data the a. Simulation
person is monitor, control and interacts with the After studied the different PLC we are using the M340. The
process. The PLC or the MMI can transfer and PLC will work according to ladder diagram. The main
collected and receive data from various devices by features of M340 PLC is that online and offline modification
the use of programming through serial port. can be done.
b) Remote terminal unit (RTU) is a device connected to
the controlled process. With the help of RTU we
can read inputs, make decision and produce output
signal. Like PLC RTU also have the control
capabilities in ladder logic in order to accomplished
Boolean logic operations.
c) Communication infrastructure coupled the various
components to SCADA system.
The main advantages of using SCADA are:
a. Real-time monitoring
b. Increased equipment life,
c. Easy faultfinding
d. Ease of maintenance
This paper consist of five sections. Section I gives the
introduction. Section II deals with the PLC and SCADA.
Section III deals with the problem formulation; section IV
Deals with the methodology employed ; section V deals with
results and section VI deals with conclusion.

FIGURE(a) PLC programming for the detection of low

Voltage

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 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
Vol. 3 Issue 11, November-2014

In the figure (a) the programming is done to compare the Animation Tables
voltage between the different phases. The animation table is used to display the values of the
variables used in the programming. To run the program
without connecting the PLC, the values of various parameters
are forced into the animation table. With the help of these
values we can run the project in the software part. The values
of all the variables or the parameters are of integer type or
bool type values.

Figure(b) PLC programming for auto start of generator sets

b. SCADA SCREEN
Vijeo citect software of SCADA is used for the online
monitoring and control of various electrical parameters.
Window overview of SCADA Software:
RT
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Figure(c) PLC programming for auto stop of generator sets.

Figure (e) SCADA screen of substation

In figure(e) When we select auto mode automatic mode

the whole operation i.e. control and monitoring of substation
equipments starts working in the automatic mode. This auto
mode shows the various equipment installed at the substation.
From this the auto and the manual operation is set down for
the equipments. The fig (e) shows the power management
system in which generator will operate automatically after the
mains failure. The system is controlled & monitored by
operator using SCADA. The substation is running on
PSPCL’s main supply which is continuously being monitored
by its meter. After the mains power failure, ACB of PSPCL
supply goes off automatically. If the meter’s value is zero or
Figure(d) programming for the monitoring of electrical parameters is less than 150v, the generator set will automatically gets on.
Each generator set will have 2 change overs viz; 1 for PSPCL
(position 1) and 1 for generator set (Position 2). After the

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(This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.)
 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
Vol. 3 Issue 11, November-2014

mains failure or when it detects the low voltage the change

over at position 1 will goes off and the change over at RESULTS:
position 2 will be on. By this the generator set will operate The proposed system is designed for the management of the
automatically & the electricity will be supplied to their voltage between the generator set and main incomer supply
destination point’s. As the whole process is in automation so and automatic detection of low voltage at the substation, so
it takes a few seconds to power up the appliances after the that we can reduce poor performance of lights, fans,
mains failure. Voltage readings of the generator sets will be computers etc and for the online monitoring of the various
shown on their individual meters. The Change over are used electrical parameters.
to switch the light from PSPCL to generator sets & vice
versa. When the PSPCL supply is back, DG sets will check CONCLUSIONS
for fluctuations for 10 seconds, and then compares the 1. Automatic or the manual control is possible.
voltage between the phases and then the ACB of the 2. The substation automation approach is very reliable,
generator set goes off & after another 5 seconds the generator user friendly using PLC and SCADA. The
set will go off & the PSPCL supply will operate the whole traditional approach towards this concept posed
process. In this, we are using 4 generator sets. Operation of various problems and it requires the substation
all generator will be same. By this our power is managed supervisor to be placed in the closed vicinity of the
between PSPCL & generator set’s supply. You can easily substation. The automatic control overcomes all
operate the breakers & can visualize the status on SCADA these difficulties.
screen. You need not to control the whole process manually. 3. Only pressing a single switch on the control panel
We can easily check the voltages & loads of different phases the whole substation will operate automatically.
as all the parameters of the energy meters will be displayed 4. Speed of the operation of the equipments also
on the SCADA screen. increases.
5. Fault tracing in any part become quite easy.
6. Ease of maintenance.
7. The unity pro software uses ladder language which
can be easy understood by any person.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
RT
The author is thankful to Harmeet singh Gill , Assistant
Professor at Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Ludhiana
for giving good suggestions during our work that enable us
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to present this work and author also thankful to friends and

the family members for encouraging.

REFERENCES
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Figure(f) SCADA screen of incoming supply voltage applications”.IEEE Conference, Page 1-8,1995.
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voltage, cureent values ,kwh consumption are shown on Fifteenth National Power Systems Conference (NPSC), IIT Bombay,
SCADA screen. December 2008.page 462-466.
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Figure (g) SCADA screen of generator and bus coupler parameters

From the above figure we can read the values of voltage ,
current etc. The values which are displayed on the SCADA
screen is only of the generator which is ON.

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