Italian utility Azienda Comunale Elettricità e Acque (ACEA) has awarded a contract to ABB to supply medium voltage products that will facilitate the development of a smart grid in Italy.
As per the contract, ABB will supply its UniSec switchgear equipped with protection relays from the Relion product family for the project spanning a new section of Rome’s electrical distribution network.
The company claims that its UniSec switchgear was specifically developed for smart grid applications and has combined current and voltage sensors for use in secondary substations.
The switch gear also includes devices for primary substations and for interfacing with distributed generation in secondary distribution substations for better reliability and availability.
ABB head medium voltage products business Bruno Melles said the installation of these intelligent products will result in reduced number of outages and cut down the average duration of service interruptions. In case of a fault, they will enable early detection and quick restoration. Eventually this will result in better power services to consumers.
The system developed for the project is based on the IEC 61850 protocol that enables open communication between multi-source devices. The system also adopts a GOOSE (Generic Object Oriented Substation Event) model over wireless network for communication among the various devices connected and between substations, and the system in the control room.
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