Towards Software-Defined Protection, Automation, and Control in Power Systems: Concepts, State of the Art, and Future Challenges

Nadine Kabbara (), Mohand Ouamer Nait Belaid (), Madeleine Gibescu, Luis Ramirez Camargo, Jerome Cantenot, Thierry Coste, Vincent Audebert and Hugo Morais ()
Additional contact information
Nadine Kabbara: EDF R&D, 91120 Palaiseau, France
Mohand Ouamer Nait Belaid: EDF R&D, 91120 Palaiseau, France
Madeleine Gibescu: Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, 3584 CB Utrecht, The Netherlands
Luis Ramirez Camargo: Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, 3584 CB Utrecht, The Netherlands
Jerome Cantenot: EDF R&D, 91120 Palaiseau, France
Thierry Coste: EDF R&D, 91120 Palaiseau, France
Vincent Audebert: EDF R&D, 91120 Palaiseau, France
Hugo Morais: Inesc-ID, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 24, 1-27

Abstract: Nowadays, power systems’ Protection, Automation, and Control (PAC) functionalities are often deployed in different constrained devices (Intelligent Electronic Devices) following a coupled hardware/software design. However, with the increase in distributed energy resources, more customized controllers will be required. These devices have high operational and deployment costs with long development, testing, and complex upgrade cycles. Addressing these challenges requires that a ’revolution’ in power system PAC design takes place. Decoupling from hardware-dependent implementations by virtualizing the functionalities facilitates the transition from a traditional power grid into a software-defined smart grid. This article presents a survey of recent literature on software-defined PAC for power systems, covering the concepts, main academic works, industrial proof of concepts, and the latest standardization efforts in this rising area. Finally, we summarize the expected future technical, industrial, and standardization challenges and open research problems. It was observed that software-defined PAC systems have a promising potential that can be leveraged for future PAC and smart grid developments. Moreover, standardizations in virtual IED software development and deployments, configuration tools, performance benchmarking, and compliance testing using a dynamic, agile approach assuring interoperability are critical enablers.

Keywords: PAC systems; IT/OT convergence; software-defined/virtualized PAC; virtualization technology; interoperability; IEC 61850; smart grids (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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