Over the past decade a Scottish Utility company has been able to provide their customers with an optimum quality of supply, through the use of Radius’ highly technical and reliable Distribution Automation products and services.
Working Partnership
Radius has been at the forefront of one of Scotlands most important utility schemes, their goal to reduce the number of power cuts to their network. Before Radius products, the utility company were reliant on customers calling their centres and informing the operator about the problem. They would then send teams of line engineers out in to the field to search for the fault. This process was not only time consuming, considering the vast scale of the electrical network, but also very cost ineffective.
Data Radio Expertise
The utility turned to Radius, experts in data radio
communication and distribution automation systems. The goal was simple: a reliable and cost effective system to increase efficiency and quality of supply. The system should be able to monitor both the electrical network and handle a number of faults automatically. The system should also be able to be controlled and monitored via the utilities‘ own SCADA system back at their control centres.
Knowledge and Power
The ongoing project is a highly collaborative one, with both companies bringing their expertise to the continual development of the scheme. One of the key staff on the development team for the utility company stated “Radius has been a key player in helping us provide a better service to our customers. Their
in-depth knowledge has helped to significantly reduce the number of customers who have down time on our network”.
diversity of product
The utilities network utilises a number of Radius products from CCU’s (Central Control Unit) in the primary
substation (which provides the link to all the remote
outstations, SCADA interfaces and logic routines) to the NMS 100 (manoeuvre device) which provides a very flexible interface to a range of remotely located switchgear. Radius even developed a specific SCADA protocol for the utility. This protocol is now part of an increasing protocol library which also involves DNP3 & IEC870.
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