Virtual substations, the driver for digitalised grids

Future virtual substations that Schneider Electric is pioneering, are designed to enable flexibility toward greener, decarbonised, and more efficient grids and operations.

The notion of the virtual substation as a ‘software-driven’ alternative to today’s well-known primary and secondary substations has gathered momentum over the past year since its unveiling.

While conceptually it is straightforward, moving all the time-critical and sensitive functions into the software space, a wide range of technological and other issues such as interoperability must be addressed to ensure it is fit for purpose and will operate seamlessly within the grid.

Smart Energy International  (SEI) sat down with Arnaud Cantin, Senior Vice President of Schneider Electric’s Digital Power Business, to find out the status of virtual substations and how Schneider Electric is evolving them.

What has emerged new and exciting on the topic of virtual substations over the past year?

What’s exciting to me is to see the combination of two accelerations.

First, there is the accelerated need for flexibility in managing the power flows at every level of the grid. The fast deployment of renewables and electric vehicle fast charging stations ensures that automating and optimising the grid operation, not only at the central grid management level but at every level, is becoming critical. This is giving rise to the need for the accelerated deployment of these scalable local solutions.

Second, is the availability of the technology, which has made a large leap forward with several companies, including Schneider Electric, moving the needle from concept phase to proof of concept implementation and preparation for scaled deployment.

Surprisingly, the interest of the virtual substation has not only piqued the interest of utilities but other sectors too such as data centres and advanced manufacturing facilities. It is creating a strong momentum towards solution availability at an industrial scale.

How does the virtual substation contribute to enhancing flexibility in power systems?

It contributes in three ways: first in allowing to largely simplify the design and supply chain of electrical equipment. Moving the ‘brains’ out of the electronics hardware into a centralised computing resource means these can become increasingly standardised, and with this can come much simpler supply chains for equipment manufacturers and grid operators, which is a significant benefit.

Moving this complex logic into a software world to manage the OT space enables the remote centralised deployment of these applications, which is key to keep evolving the smart controls of the grid without needing to physically return to each substation to implement a change, as upgrades can be remotely made and centrally deployed when required.

The third is that the substations generate their digital twins because the code that runs in operation can also be in offline simulations to ease the engineering and the testing of the initial system and its upgrades later.

This presents the perfect means to derisk projects and system upgrades by anticipating the testing outside the physical environment.

Can you outline the MV/LV substation controller virtualisation, functions and next steps?

We believe that at present the biggest opportunity to leverage the virtual substation concept is with secondary substations as they represent the largest population of installations in the tens of thousands and thus are unable to be upgraded rapidly by operators.

Grid operators have also evolved from solely controlling the medium voltage loops to monitoring, measuring, optimising and controlling the LV side of the substation where renewables and EV charging are plugged in.

In Europe, the E4S Alliance, of which Schneider Electric is a member, is developing a standard for interoperability for virtual substations. Based on this standard, we are developing a combination of a virtualised remote terminal unit (RTU) and LV metering.

Therefore, the next generation of our PowerLogic T300 platform, which is currently a physical RTU offer, is expanding to be fully virtualisable to host both the management of the MV side in the traditional way and the control and optimisation of the LV side in a single platform.

“…the biggest opportunity to leverage the virtual substation concept is with secondary substations…”

What is the status of testing and piloting virtual substations?

The first deployment comprises a fully virtualised system with the French TSO RTE, at a test facility to emulate the behaviour of a real substation.

This past year, we completed the validation of the performance and robustness of the solution. The next step is a field deployment based on our new generation of virtualisation-ready protection and control platform, the PowerLogic P7.

Overall, the pace of testing is increasing, particularly in the data centre sector, which I mentioned, where virtualisation is highly mature in the IT space and would be welcomed in the OT space.

When is implementation envisaged in the field?

I expect to see the first systems operating in proof-of-concept mode in about one year from now, i.e. mid-2025.

One option is to do a small installation for private customers.

The other is to install it as a redundant backup system – we are looking for schemes with a traditional protection and automation system running in the substation, to which we would propose to add a second system behind it that will perform the same function in a virtualised fashion and prove that the virtualised system replicates the physical system without any direct impact on the operation.

We expect the solution to be deployed mainly in greenfield and new substations in the longer term; however, we are also looking at cases where upgrades can be done in steps, particularly the larger primary substations where there is a physical differentiation between the protection and control sensors and the IT could be upgraded without having to change the sensors.

The solutions are designed to enable this lifecycle approach.

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Could you expand on the work of the E4S and VPAC alliances towards virtual substations?

The focus is on finding a common specification for interoperability between the different OEMs and users.

The focus is different in that the E4S is focused on secondary substations whereas VPAC is primarily US-based and focused on the primary substation and full automation in private facilities.

The VPAC Alliance has been very focused on driving a common specification for those systems and we take that as a backbone for what we develop to ensure that we are enabling the interoperability that end users expect in this type of initiative.

The E4S Alliance has been focused on the concept and specification as well as bringing it to life with prototyping to prove interoperability with the different vendor software platforms and OEM-developed solutions.

Looking ahead, what do you envision as the most impactful trends and developments to shape the trajectory of power management?

From the perspective of substation level protection and automation, what seems clear to me is that after all the efforts to locate the intelligence at the central level, we now know that a combination of intelligence is needed at the central level and at the edge, i.e. at every substation level.

We see that local optimisation and automation are a must to make the grid smart and virtual substations play a key role in enabling this distributed intelligence by creating a backbone on which artificial intelligence can also be deployed locally.

I believe that digital twins will play a critical role because they will enable much better planning, deployment and operation at the substation and at the grid level.

“…we now know that a combination of intelligence is needed at the central level and at the edge…”

By offering a model of a substation that can be combined into a higher model of the grid and being able to engineer what is needed in the substation first as part of the broader system, we will be able to derisk projects as one can start the testing immediately rather than having to wait for the physical system to be assembled.

That’s a huge advantage and it applies for upgrades, which can be tested in a simulated environment before deployment.

Overall, I see a lot of lifecycle management benefits from the digital twins while creating the operational flexibility to control the more dynamic power flows that we’ll see across the grid.

What virtual substation innovations will Schneider Electric be demonstrating at Enlit Europe 2024 in Milan?

There are three key elements.

First is the new PowerLogic P7 high-end protection and control platform, which has been designed to make the bridge between the physical and the virtualised solutions. Being able to provide a solution that can operate in both environments we believe is a key element to smooth the transition.

The second is our EcoStruxure^TM System Management tool suite, which provides baseline management and services such as software upgrades, backup and restoration of configurations, and management of cybersecurity settings. We are already deploying this tool suite for physical environments, and it also will become the backbone for deploying applications in a virtualised environment.

Then the third will be a proof of concept of the integration of MV and LV management for secondary substations. Starting with the physical solutions that are available and deployable today we will have a physical package to gain feedback on what should be deployed in a virtualised environment.

I’m impatient to be there and we invite readers to visit us and provide us with valuable insights to guide our further developments!

About the author

Arnaud Cantin leads Schneider Electric’s digital power business, which is developing end-to-end digital solutions for the sustainable and efficient management of power systems. In the role for six years to date and before that heading the solar and storage division, he is well acquainted with the challenges faced not only by utilities but across industries and other sectors.

The digital power business is developing solutions combining intelligent electronic devices like energy meters, protection relays, controllers and power quality correction equipment with software and services to guarantee high power availability and safety while making operations more sustainable and efficient.