Many industries such as Building Automation (analysing of building operating parameters across various premises), Automotive (predictive warning for luxury vehicles), Land Transportation (think ERP 2.0 in Singapore!) has/will be implementing Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) in its’ various forms for the different benefits and uses cases it provides.

If you are still confused about IIOT vs IOT vs Industrie 4.0 and other terms? Check out this link here.

The results have been intriguing and allowed those who have implemented such systems to stand out from their competitors amidst increasing competitiveness of their market.

In critical infrastructure (such as power industry), such a movement has been much slower. This is because a failure in critical infrastructure systems will have far reaching consequences unlike other industries. For example, an unnecessary power trip caused by a data packet not being received in time can affect hundreds or even thousands of residents in a large neighbourhood. Compare this to having a car breakdown in the middle of the road because the predictive warning for car servicing was not triggered!

IEC 61850 – What data can we track?

For Power Industry (Power generation, power grid operations, contestable energy market consumers etc.), we are in the infancy of a huge change, led by IEC61850 to achieve internet of things for power industry (commonly known as Virtual Heat & Power plant (VHP), Smart Grid or other variants).

IEC 61850 allows for

1. Interoperability: with systems and products from different manufacturer designed and
   communicating in the same way, Power grid operators, Power Generators, Power Consumers can their own systems to communicate with other systems easily.
2. Industrial hardening of equipment: Components of systems needs to comply with IEC61850-3 which require hardening of industrial components, able to withstand the harsh condition of power industry, such as high Electromagnetic Interferences.
3. Common system architecture and easy naming nomenclature of data points, allowing for integration into one BIG virtual network to be much simpler.

And these in terms allows for some pretty cool things in line with IIOT:

Predictive maintenance

Imagine knowing exactly when to replace the switchgear/transformer parts and knowing when it will fail! Switchgear/transformer spare parts usually require lead time. Knowing in advance before the electrical assets needs replacements allows power grid operators/ power generators to prepare for the spare parts in advance, minimizing risk for downtime.

Proactive maintenance

Instead of waiting for something to happen before we fix it, there is an increasing trend that engineers worldwide are always studying and trying to understand their system better!

Increased productivity

At present, checks on health of systems and electrical assets are periodically conducted. Unfortunately, there is no real good reason why a monthly period is chosen over a bi-annual check. This is a waste of precious resources as manpower is conducted to do meaningless checks.  This time can definitely be better spent implementing a strong IIOT system that cuts down on these wastages and allows for a more advanced form of maintenance!

With these building blocks in place and obvious advantages, the last remaining challenge will be to adopt IIOT for Power Industry, i.e. where should we start to monitor and collect data from?

IIOT for Power Industry

For this, IEC is in the midst of a technical review for IEC 61850:

Part 90-3: Using IEC 61850 for Condition Monitoring Diagnosis and Analysis

This part of the standard will provide standardization for information modelling, exchange and configuration techniques for Condition Monitoring & Diagnosis for Power Utility Automation. What this mean is that in this part of the standard, there will be explicit description of how you can use IEC61850 to achieve predictive/proactive maintenance and increase productivity! There will be guides on which part of the switchgear/transformer/cables you should monitor and how exactly you should be monitoring them.

At Phoenix Contact, we have summarised IEC 61850 with regards to the portions it recommends condition monitoring and we are glad to share the summary below:

At Phoenix Contact, we also have a wide range of reliable IEC61850-3 industrial hardened components necessary for implementing of IEC61850 systems. Products include Network Switches, Ethernet to Fibre Media Converter, Parallel Redundancy Modules, Bus Couplers/IOs and Power Supply (AC to DC or DC to DC).

Do you want to know more about IEC61850/IIOT or how exactly condition monitoring can be done to stay ahead of IEC standards? Leave us your contact at marketing@phoenixcontact.com.sg and we will be in touch with you shortly.

In the last two articles, we discuss the basic definition of automation as well as the advantages of running an automated system.

For this final article, we will be looking at the different types of Automation Systems and also case studies of the clients who have automated their manufacturing and production plants with great success.

Through this final part on automation, we hope that if you will consider automating your business and if you require assistance, help is on your side!

Read more on the Types of Automation System and Actual Case Studies here

In the last post, we explained the basics of Industrial Automation and why industries are shifting towards this new concept.

This week, we will be diving on the advantages of Automation and the hierarchies of an automation system, to provide fundamental knowledge regarding this concept that is taking over at a fast pace.

Why are industries turning towards Automation? (Advantages of Automation System)

Because of the evident benefits that businesses have seen when they migrated towards automation, there is no reason not to adopt these technologies.

Curious to know how automation can help your business like the countless of other businesses? Read on

*A first of a series of technical articles for IIOT in Power Engineering industry. Join our mailing list to find out more as we explore specific applications!

The Advent of Smart Grid:

With the rise in electrical costs and the stringent regulations/deregulation of energy markets, there has been an increased in the advocacy of turning towards the Smart Grid to overcome the challenges of today’s energy markets.

Evidently, the building blocks of implementing the Smart Grid are already underway in various countries.

Initiatives such as:

• Relying on renewable energy
• The erecting of small micro-grids to provide power to smaller residential areas
• Limitless choices for consumers to choose their energy suppliers
• The different ways of how energy is being manufactured (whether its solar, wind or coal)

To harmonize this plethora of choices requires sturdy flow of information to ensure grid reliability.

Therefore, for the full potential of the Smart Grid to be realized, Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution needs to be equipped with digital control and monitoring, and the capability of telecommunications.

With these, all stakeholders in the smart grid will gain access to valuable information needed to ensure optimization of Smart Grid.

Courtesy: Fluke Corporation

IOT and Smart Grid:

As such, IOT has been proven to be useful. IOT is about integrating connectivity to all kinds of items.

This is essentially needed to achieve what has been discussed earlier.

In addition, IOT focuses on the potential of big data analysis. When utilized in the Power Industry, there will be the prospect of predictive analytics and allowing for proactive instead of reactive operations.

This allows for:

• Capital expenditure and maintenance costs to be decreased.
• Energy demand to be managed more effectively.
• More robust energy mix among other benefits.

However, the issue here is that implementing IOT to the commercial or common industrial sphere is much easier compared to implementing IOT to critical infrastructures such as the power grid.

The market realizes this and has aptly come up with the term, Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT), focusing on implementing IOT in critical infrastructures.

Some additional focus of IIOT includes:
1) Cyber security

2) Easy retrofitting

3) Reliable industrial telecommunications

4) And in Power Industry: IEC61850

IIOT in power industry and its primary application?

Power Generation: Predictive maintenance of equipment, planning for optimal power generation
Power Transmission: Minimizing operational loss
Power Distribution: Visibility of last mile (LV) data

Distributed Energy Resources: Establishment of Virtual Power Plants (VPP)
Customer Premises: Dynamic Pricing, automated demand-response energy

At Phoenix Contact, we have products that cater to IEC61850 International Standards, perfect to facilitate IIOT.

We also specialize in cyber-security and Industrial Communications.

All of these are supplied in enclosures that can be easily retrofitted on existing assets like switchgears and transformers. Who says IIOT means forking out on new hardware?

Our products are built to ensure that your current business is given a boost.

Future-proof your business. Sign up to our newsletter to receive regular updates on IIOT and automation, as well as exclusive product demo on site.

What are you waiting for?

Contact us at marketing@phoenixcontact.com.sg to find out more!