CIGRE SC D2 Meeting and Colloquium 2009

Japan

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION SYSTEM FOR OPERATION OF HIGH VOLTAGE

DIRECT CURRENT LINES

SUBJECT:

Information and Telecommunication Systems Available in Emergencies at Electric

Utilities.

GUILLERMO GALARZA
ABB S.A.
ARGENTINA

CARLOS ALBERTO DI PALMA

TRANELSA CONSULTORA S.A.
ARGENTINA

SYNOPSIS
Within the High Voltage Transmission System planning in Argentina, the installation of
High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) Lines is under consideration.
In this kind of power networks, the need of transmission of full information goes far beyond the possibilities of power line carrier technology for the main communication system.
In order to transmit digital protection links, packet switched control networks, video
surveillance, corporate Ethernet networks, generation shedding automatisms, etc., it is
mandatory to adopt solutions based on fibre optic transmission technologies, as the only
way to provide enough bandwidth.
However, due to the long distances involved in HVDC lines, fibre optic systems will include repeaters and remote amplifiers, which are located outside of the substations, becoming real weak points in case of any natural disaster (flood, earthquakes, rainstorms,
etc.) or attack. They will also have boosters, preamplifiers, Raman gain amplifiers, etc.
and all of them will add a certain probability of faults. As direct consequence, both reliability and maintenance costs will be strongly affected.
In order to have a reasonable back-up communication system, and consequently to increase Reliability and Availability figures of the HVDC Lines, it is desirable to use
Digital Power Line Carrier System (DPLC) with 512 kbps capacity, in order to obtain
the maximum channel efficiency (Cd/BWd), with the minimum cost/link length ratio.
By means of this solution, it will be possible to carry the minimal required information
for an acceptable and safe operation of the HVDC Lines in case of an emergency.

CIGRE SC D2 Meeting and Colloquium 2009

Japan

This work describes the main criteria necessary to be taken into account for the design
of power line carrier links for long haul lines, as well as to describe the technologies
normally applied for this purpose in Power Utility.
The paper will develop two main aspects in order to obtain a good emergency communication system:
* design and planning considerations
* main equipment features to be taken into account
The independence between the choice of the RF operating frequencies for new HVDC
Lines and the existing RF spectrum on HVAC systems, due to the isolation between AC
and DC high voltage systems, will allow the usage of extremely low frequencies (20-24
kHz) and consequently obtain a high quality of services.
The main design considerations to reach the highest possible link Availability (Ai), will
be described. Among them, coupling modes, transmission capacity, maximum BER,
maximum efficiency, etc, will be discussed.
The absence of corona noise, in the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the HVDC lines, will
be taken into account, as well as the presence of residual noise originated after the conversion process (see note *).
The behaviour of the DPLC link capacity in function of a given (S/N)min will be studied. The criteria for the maximum availability will be analyzed, as well as the complete
design based on the worst case, in order to assure the permanent link operation under
adverse S/N conditions.
The limit for the information capacity established by the Shannon Theorem, will be discussed. The required BW in order to transmit the amount of data assigned to the emergency communication system, will be contrasted with the DPLC`s equipment features.
From the equipment point of view, the main desirable characteristics to have in the
DPLC device will be described. Subjects like capability of dynamic resource allocation,
allocation of a hierarchy of the different functions to be transmitted in an emergency
operation, will be also developed in the paper.
Analysis of different alternatives of reduction of transmission speed as well as reduction
of quantity of services transmitted will be analyzed. The convenience of the use of the
fall-back/ fall-forward function to adjust the transmission capacity under adverse conditions, and subsequent recovery process, will be evaluated.
Additionally, the paper will analyze the advantage of the usage of equipment that can be
configured as both, DPLC as well as APLC, so as to obtain an additional alternative for
the security in the transmission of the information.
Finally, a summary will show the comparative analysis of the information to be transmitted by each communication system (Main and Backup), under normal operation and

CIGRE SC D2 Meeting and Colloquium 2009

Japan

emergency respectively, in order to clarify how the goal is obtained with the proposed
integrated solution.

(*) The paper will not analyze the noise generated for the Converter Station, based on
the assumption that high frequency filters must be taken into account in the electric design procedures.