Integrative switchgear automation
Automation of switchgear with SIMATIC PCS 7 PowerControl
In many process engineering plants large electrical consumers with high energy consumption are used, e.g. large drives, heavy blowers, compressors, pumps, mills and crushers, large centrifuges, electrolysis and electroplating plants or also building feeds. They are integrated via medium-voltage switchgear which controls, switches and automates the individual loads via devices for protection and control functions (Intelligent Electronic Devices - IEDs) on the basis of the IEC 61850 standard protocol. In practice, different systems have generally been used to monitor and control the switchgear on the one hand and for the actual process automation on the other. With SIMATIC PCS 7 PowerControl, the homogeneous integration of the switchgear into the SIMATIC PCS 7 process control system can now be implemented, resulting in a uniform system platform for process and energy. This is freely scalable: from the simple visualization of protection devices in small plants to the high-availability integration of electrical loads in large plants.
Process and energy with one system in view
Separate systems for energy supply and the actual process? It doesn't have to be! With SIMATIC PCS 7 PowerControl, you can integrate the automation of your switchgear into the process control system and thus merge otherwise separate worlds: Various system components are flexibly combined with each other for this purpose. This enables variable integration, ranging from operation and monitoring to the automation of electrical switchgear for medium voltages in a single control system. The advantage for plant operators: Significant cost savings over the entire life cycle of the plant. You benefit from simpler plant structures with more transparency, further increase the degree of plant integration and achieve enormous cost savings over the entire life cycle of your plant.
Intelligent Electronic Devices (IED) are used for switchgear automation, i.e. for protection, control, measurement and monitoring tasks in electrical power transmission and distribution, e.g. SIPROTEC protective devices or interoperable Third-party devices. The IEDs are integrated into the SIMATIC PCS 7 process control system via Ethernet-based TCP/IP communication using the IEC 61850 transmission protocol, the internationally recognized standard for communication in power networks. In addition to this standard solution, the classic integration of protective devices via PROFIBUS and PROFINET is also supported. The IEC 61850 protocol contains comprehensive definitions and pursues three main objectives:
- Interoperability between devices from different manufacturers
- Long-term investment protection
- Efficient exchange of object-oriented data models
