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ELES and Hitachi Energy are launching the ‘Next Generation Control System’ project, aiming to enable the development of advanced digital solutions for transmission grid control centres.
Under a strategic cooperation agreement, Slovenia’s system operator of the combined transmission and distribution electricity network and the Swiss tech major together will develop new advanced functionalities.
The project will be completed in two years, and the organisations are developing and financing it together.
ELES will invest in the improvements, while Hitachi Energy will develop the agreed functionalities and verify them together with ELES. Hitachi Energy will later include the new functionalities in its standard Network Manager EMS offering.
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As part of the project, ELES and Hitachi Energy will develop three key new control system functionalities:
- Enterprise Service Bus, a software solution that connects different applications so that they can communicate and exchange data with each other – even if they use different languages, protocols or formats. In practice, this solution will be implemented on the example of the system for determining operating limits (SUMO).
- Voltage Var Control, which represents an upgrade of the existing voltage regulation system by introducing complex functions and advanced regulation methods.
- The Common Information Model, which improves the efficiency of network model data exchanged between different systems and organisations, especially transmission system operators.
Commenting in a release was ELES CEO, Mag. Aleksander Mervar: “Today’s [agreement signing] event is an important step in the digital transformation of our electricity sector and at the same time strengthens the role of ELES, as well as the state of Slovenia, as an innovative environment for the development of advanced energy solutions.
“New digital solutions will thus enable better integration of different systems, smarter management of voltage in the network and more efficient and transparent exchange of data. This is a technologically advanced project that will significantly contribute to a safer, more efficient and more sustainable operation of the Slovenian electricity system.”
Said Lars Wiklander, business operations strategy & planning executive at Hitachi Energy: “The grid management software and systems ecosystem of the future must be built on flexible, modular architecture to give TSOs and utilities the scale they need to manage a changing and dynamic grid, the flexibility to integrate proprietary and third-party applications, and the control and visibility necessary to manage and deliver a reliable, resilient power supply.
“This collaboration with ELES is an important proof point in our strategy to deliver the leading grid management ecosystem with Network Manager.”
The ‘Next Generation Control System’ project represents a continuation of the cooperation between the companies, based on the good experience of the NEDO project, which they say represents a key step in the development of such functionalities for transmission grid control centres.
