ZIMBABWE ELECTRICITY TRANSMISSION

& DISTRIBUTION COMPANY

INTERNAL CORRESPONDENCE

From: Mercy Munatsi (PGT) At: National Control

Centre

To: Mr Shiriyedenga (PNCSE) At: National Control

Centre

Cc: Human resources Manager (Transmission) At: Head office

Date: 08 May 2013

Subject: Report for Mercy Munatsi (PGT), Power Network Control

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Acknowledgements:
I would like to acknowledge the cooperation that I got during my training period within this
section. I enjoyed the work so much that if wishes were horses, I would have liked to join this
section after my post graduate training. I greatly appreciate the help that I got from all
members of staff with special mention to the following individuals who played a pivotal role
during the two months of training:-
 Engineer Peace Machakaire
 Engineer Swerdi kalonga
 Engineer Moketsi Noku
May the Lord richly bless them for the time they invested in me.


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1.0 INTRODUCTION
The Power Network Control section in ZETDC under the Technical Services section is
responsible for the design and maintenance of the control system for the utility’s power
network. A SCADA central system is used to ensure the efficient control of remote plant as
well as the accurate acquisition of information such as measurements and status indications
using RTU( Remote Terminal Units)s . The section is responsible for the assembly and
setting up of RTU ( Remote Terminal Units)s and SCS( Sub-station Control System) The
trainee spent a total of two months in this department.

2.0 SCADA OVERVIEW

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) refers to the combination of telemetry
and data acquisition used to monitor and control plant and equipment. SCADA within the
Power network control department is used to monitor alarm conditions, status conditions and
measurements and control of plant equipment by the use of commands. In short it is needed
for the collection of data and the supervision and control of circuits. In certain applications
SCADA can be used in closed loop systems but in this case it is used for an open loop control
system. The plant and equipment on the process side of SCADA includes substations, lines
and generating stations.

The new type of SCADA currently being used in our system is Network Manager (WS 500)
which is an ABB product. Old SCADA systems which were used before this new SCADA
are SINDAC and SPIDER. SINDAC was replaced by SPIDER, then came Network Manager.
The introduction of Network Manager brought the following changes:

 Increased capacity from 1GB to 146GB.

 Increased handling capability of indications from 20000 to 28000.

The ZESA SCADA employs point-to-multipoint network configuration. This is a

configuration where one station (NCC) is set up as the master to several slave remote
stations. Each slave is assigned a unique identification code.
The system uses a polled communication mode in which the master makes regular polling of
data i.e sends and receives data to each slave in sequence. Slave units only respond to the

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master when they receive requests. This is different from an interrupt mode in which a slave
monitors its inputs. When it detects significant change or exceeds limits, it initiates
communication to the master and transmits data. This means that the MS will ask the
RTU for information, but the RTU will only report changes since the last
polling.
Frequent questions polled include status of apparatus (open/closed etc.)
measurands and indications.

Double indications are used for important objects such as circuit breakers
instead of single indications for the reason of increasing security, (avoiding
single state error) 2 bits have to change so if one changes coz of other reasons
like bad medium, its not validated true.

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The components of a SCADA system are as outlined below:

 HMI (Human Machine Interface) – Also sometimes referred to as MMI (Man Machine
Interface). It is the apparatus which presents process or plant data to a human operator and
through which the operator controls and monitors the process. In our system there are several
consoles at the control centers dedicated for this function. Displays onscreen the mimic
diagram of the whole plant for easier identification with real system.

 Supervisory (computer) system – is the apparatus responsible for gathering or acquiring

information from the plant and sends commands or control information to the plant. At NCC
there are PCUs (Process Communications Units) and Central PCs which serve as the
supervisory system.
  RTU (Remote Terminal Unit) - A Remote Terminal Unit is a microprocessor-controlled
electronic device that interfaces objects in the physical world to a distributed control system
or supervisory control and data acquisition system by transmitting telemetry data to the
system and/or altering the state of connected objects based on control messages received
from the system.

 Communication channel – is the infrastructure connecting the supervisory system to the

RTUs.

Below are the descriptions of components of the supervisory system together with HMI:
 Central PC – is the master unit of the SCADA. Is responsible for the collection of
information gathered from the remote stations and accordingly generate necessary action for
any event that is detected. It is composed of system servers which are Application server
(AS), Data Engineering (DE) Server, and Utility Data Warehouse (UDW) which is a
magnetic tape for storage of historical information.

 PCU – it sequentially polls the slave stations to gather information, temporarily stores it
before passing it to the Central PC for storage in the UDW. There are two PCUs i.e PCU1
and PCU2. The PCC together with other components make up the Front End (FE)

 HMI – runs its program on the Central PCs. The program also creates a separate window for
alarms. Access to the program is permitted only to qualified operators who are allocated
passwords for security purposes.

Power Network Control Report 2013 Page 6

3.0 Remote Terminal Unit (RTU)
The RTU is a 16 bit channel digital system

3.1 RTU Structure and Types

The conventional RTU is made up of the following cards or modules:
 Two Bus terminators – one on each end (QDBB)

 Memory cards – for information storage

 Communication unit – form transmission and reception of signals

 Bus supervisor – for voltage distribution supervision. Has LEDs which glow red for fault
indication.

 Loop reversal or transmission direction switch – two transmission directions are available, A
and B.

The RTU output voltages are +15V, -15V, and +24V dc.

The RTU types in the ZESA system are:

 DS801 – dominant in Harare. Uses QDBB 130 address board. Has one memory.
 DS803 – widely use in ZESA. Has higher memory than DS801. Has 3 memories.
 RTU 400 – Installed at the recently built substations that includes Dema and Bindura. Has
its database resident locally as opposed to a database based at NCC for other types.
 SCS ( Substation Control System ) – It’s a computer based RTU . This type of RTU is
found at Norton BSP.

NB: After assembling an RTU, it is tested for proper operation using software known as CTU80. It is
tested for completeness of cycles while not interfaced with the physical world. The trainee
participated in building a DS803 for installation at Harare BSP
Other tasks carried out include measurands checks and rectification at Atlanta, Alaska, Glenview and
Budiriro. An instrument known as a Kompav is used to simulate transducer output and inject current
into RTU for cross checking at NCC.
Connection lists are made use to check correct wiring of status indications and all power system
measurands.

Power Network Control Report 2013 Page 7