NEWS FLASH

ENDESA ACQUIRES MAJOR SHARE OF INTERCONNECTION CAPACITY BETWEEN FRANCE AND ITALY The French electricity system operator RTE put out an average of 547MW to tender in respect of the interconnection capacity between France and Italy. ENDESA acquired an average of 497MW, representing 88% of the total capacity put out to tender. This is the first time that France has put part of the interconnection capacity between the two countries out to tender.

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NEWS FLASH

FIRST SUBSTATION CONTROL SYSTEM BASED ON IEC 61850 Six months after the IEC 61850 communication standard for substation automation was released, Siemens Power Transmission and Distribution (PTD) installed the world’s first substation with IEC 61850-based control. The equipment is in use in a 16 kV substation where Siemens installed the Sicam PAS control system. The new communication standard ensures the required interoperability in the substation. All connected protection devices “speak” a common language, regardless of manufacturer, and have no problem exchanging data with one another. Thus far there have been relatively few cases where substation protection systems and bay controllers originating from different manufacturers could communicate; indeed, a variety of communication protocols exists in substations around the world. As a result, operators have to contend with extra work during commissioning, as well as unnecessarily high costs because of the number of protocol converters that have to be used. A further problem is that different communication protocols have a negative effect on the long-term maintainability and extendibility of the equipment. IEC 61850, which is on the way to becoming the globally accepted communication standard for substations, will play a large part in solving these problems. www.iec.ch www.siemens.com