BACKGROUND. ABB MicroSCADA

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2 BACKGROUND

2.1 ABB Substation Automation Systems

ABB is a global leader in power and automation technologies headquartered in

Zurich, Switzerland. The Company employs 145 000 people in approximately 100 countries. ABB in its current form was born in 1988 when Swedish ASEA and

Swiss BBC Brown Boveri united. Finnish company Oy Strömberg Ab was bought by ASEA in 1987. /1/

Substation Automation Systems is part of the ABB Power Systems division’s

Network Management business unit. It designs and engineers advanced substation automation, protection and control solutions.

2.2 MicroSCADA

MicroSCADA is supervision software developed by ABB. The development started in 1981 by Strömberg Oy in Vaasa, Finland. It was originally developed for substation automation but today it is also widely used for supervising and controlling electrical power networks. /16/

SCADA is an abbreviation for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. It is a common type of industrial control system that is used for real-time monitoring and control of system, processes or even specific machinery. MicroSCADA is mainly used for substation automation and network control, but it can also be used to control and monitor non-electrical applications, such as railroads, water and sewage utilities, district heating, or even oil and gas distribution.

MicroSCADA systems usually consist of:

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Workstations with a human-machine interface (HMI) which presents the data and measurements in a graphical user interface to a human operator who monitors and controls the process

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A system server where MicroSCADA is running

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Communication devices like switches, routers and modems and communication servers

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Protection relays (IED) capable of performing various mathematical calculations and communicating with other devices

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Remote terminal units (RTU) that convert the sensor signals to digital data and send that data to the computer systems

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All kinds of peripheral equipment, such as printers and GPS device /3/

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An example of a process window in MicroSCADA can be seen in Figure 1.

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Figure 1. Process Window of MicroSCADA

Breakers and disconnectors and their states are shown in the picture. They are named with a letter Q in the beginning. T1 is a power transformer which steps down voltage from 110 kV to 20 kV. Flashing red circles presents active alarms.

Busbars are colored green when there is a voltage and white when they are disconnected. Busbar coloring can also be voltage dependent, when different voltage levels are colored differently. Coloring options can be changed and indicators can be self-designed. Event displays and alarm lists can be found from the top right corner of the picture.