The 21st century substation design: Vision of the future

This paper discusses the 21st century substation design requirements, which should meet the following criteria: improved reliability, cost, interoperability, reconfigurability, security, controllability and flexibility. Such criteria require designs that use new methodologies quite different from the existing philosophy. The design strategies are focused on reducing cost while maintaining the performance, or maintaining cost while improving performance. Based on the considerations mentioned above, we proposed three design approaches: a) retrofitting the existing substations by replacing legacy equipment with new technologies without disrupting continuity of service, b) implementing brand new substation design using of-the-shelf technologies, and c) envisioning green-filed substation design considering energy market, profit optimization and system-operation/price.