|
Second Wind News Archives
Second Wind Introduces Encoderless Tap Position Reporting System
5
February 2001 — Second Wind Inc., an innovative provider
of supervisory monitoring and control solutions to the energy distribution
market, has announced here today at DistribuTECH 2001 the availability
of its Encoderless Tap Position Reporting (ETPR) System. This software
extension to the company’s Phaser® and PhaserMaster™ products
provides utility Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)
with the positions of any single or three–phase load tap
changers at substations. ETPR eliminates the need to install, maintain,
interface, or unify the operation of physical tap position encoders.
Used in conjunction with Phaser–based feeder monitoring,
ETPR provides the real–time information needed to determine
the reserve capacity and load–sharing options of the transformers,
busses and feeders that distribute power from the electric utility
companies to their customers.
“ETPR extends the functionality of Second Wind’s Phaser–based
approach to cost effectively bring substation SCADA to the feeder level,” said
Mr. Walter Sass, president of Second Wind. “Many utilities can’t
monitor or centrally regulate each of the feeders radiating from their
substations, even if they have controllable load tap changers at each feeder.
It simply was too expensive to justify. Today, belt tightening at most
utilities creates both the justification to add feeder SCADA – to
get every kilowatt out of existing lines and equipment – but also
the lack of funding to do so. Second Wind’s approach to bus and feeder
SCADA extension is to provide solutions so customer–focused and inexpensive
that they rapidly pay for themselves. It’s what we’re good
at. For years we supplied hardware and software to wind energy projects
that had minimal SCADA budgets. This is the market we grew up with – make
SCADA pay or it doesn’t happen.”
ETPR is the latest benefit of the synergy between Second Wind’s
hardware products. A PhaserMaster installed to get Phaser feeder
and bus data has access to much more information than the SCADA system
requests. PhaserMaster can ask the Phasers for the additional data
about what goes in and what comes out of the transmission–side
transformers or distribution–side feeder autotransformers to
accurately infer their tap positions. PhaserMaster can send the tap
data along to the SCADA system; no new hardware is needed.
The Phaser/PhaserMaster combination can provide many other novel
functions that also obviate the need for other hardware. For example,
the combo can actually perform load tap changer control with Phaser
relay outputs, and maintaining voltage regulation even if transformers
are tied together.
About the Phaser Product Family
Second Wind’s Phaser product family, introduced in 1997, is
a new class of multi–function instrumentation for the measurement
of three–phase electric power. The Phaser, a programmable power
transducer, provides 0.2% ANSI C12.20 meter class accuracy, regardless
of harmonic distortion. Phaser calculates and produces digital data
and analog outputs for 60 different electrical values, has 90 nonvolatile
metering registers, and can drive multifunction panel displays. Phasers
are supplied with the Phaser Utilities software suite for configuring
and monitoring Phasers from any Microsoft Windows laptop. Second
Wind’s new PhaserMaster is another capable bargain: it acts
as protocol converter, Phaser data processor and controller, and
communications gateway – but costs far less than a new substation
RTU or ruggedized PC.
|
|
