Energy Substation Monitoring and Control
Application: Network-Enabled Substation Monitoring and
Control
Quatech Products Used: SSE-400D
and QSE-400D 1 and 4-Port RS-232/422/485 Serial Device Servers
 click
for larger image
Energy management systems monitor everything from pressure at a gas well
to the quality of electric power being generated. Typically a Master Data
Center will monitor and control systems operating in a number of remote
substations--often located miles away. The traditional way to configure
these systems is to run long, bulky, shielded serial (RS-232 or RS-485)
cables between multiple Remote Terminal Units (RTU) and a local host PC
at the substation. The RTUs process sensor inputs and transmit that information
to the local PC. That PC is then connected via phone line or radio tower
to the Master Data Center. The result is a system that transmits data
and enables remote monitoring, but does not enable the RTU itself to be
remotely controlled.
Network-enabling the energy management system leverages the serial equipment
currently in place, significantly reduces the cost of deploying additional
RTUs (because Ethernet cable can be run for about one tenth the cost of
shielded serial cable), and will allow remote access and control of each
RTU from any PC or server on the network, regardless of operating system.
Further, the device server can also be connected to other monitoring equipment
such as energy meters, that can then also be remotely monitored and controlled.
Device servers offer the additional versatility of being invisible to
software applications. Thus they are compatible with all industrial protocols,
because they function simply as pass-through devices. The device server
does not interpret proprietary signals, it simply encapsulates any RS-232/422/485
serial signal in TCP/IP, transports it over Ethernet, the strips away
the TCP/IP information, leaving the PC or server to interpret the serial
data using any supported language or protocols. This means a single
device server can be used with any combination of equipment using any
number of different protocols.
Other Energy Management Applications:
|
click
for larger image
