Power systems communication and modularity

On shore oil and gas power systems networks are the heart of any exploration, drilling, transportation, and refining operation. With increased demand for product and project schedules increasingly shortened, new methods for maximizing uptime and project expediency have become necessary. In remote locations where contract and commissioning resources are limited, organizations need the ability to operate self sufficiently, with less people and with more agility than ever. Additionally, many production sites have equipment spread out over vast land areas making it difficult and time consuming to troubleshoot problems. Combining power systems equipment into integrated, pre-assembled skids allows for rapid installation and commissioning, and provides significantly improved transportability. Incorporating communication technologies into these skids allows the transmission of vital operational data (i.e. differential protection scheme data, feeder status, metering data, fault data, etc) to a decentralized location. Transformer and breaker monitoring capabilities are very important to the early notification of impending problems in the substation. The ability to energize sites with smart, modular building blocks improves power system reliability and overall uptime for remote sites. This paper discusses an application in the oil and gas industry where adoption of a modular skid and technologies were combined as a pilot for future substations in gas (coal bed) fields. The sites represented in this application are not staffed and are not close to operating personnel. The result of this creates a drastic reduction in response time when problems in the substation arise.