TSSPDCL begins substation automation in GHMC limits

So far it has converted five substations located at Kalyan Nagar, Mufkamza, Shilparamam, Krishna Nagar and Nagole into fully automated ones

Hyderabad: As part of its drive to lower operational costs by reducing the manning needs of substations, the Telangana State Southern Power Distribution Company Limited (TSSPDCL), which has been adopting advance technologies to improve its efficiencies, has started automating 33/11 KV substations in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) area.

So far it has converted five substations located at Kalyan Nagar, Mufkamza, Shilparamam, Krishna Nagar and Nagole into fully automated ones.

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According to TSSPDCL Chairman and Managing director G Raghuma Reddy, the company decided to automate substations as it would result in improved reliability and optimized manpower cost.

Substation automation provides advanced disturbance management and event recording capabilities in Transmission & Distribution networks, resulting in detailed and faster fault analysis, he said, adding that in a phased manner, the remaining substations would be automated.

“As technology advances, human involvement becomes less and degree of automation will correspondingly get greater,”he said.

Raghuma Reddy said the company had already started setting up Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems in substations and Distribution Management Systems (DMSs) for 11 KV feeders in GHMC limits.

“We have set up SCADA in 226 substations and DMSs in 167 feeders. Soon they would be set up in many more substations and feeders,”he said. There are about 3171 11 KV and 645 33 KV substations in the GHMC limits.

He said the SCADA and DMS implementation has enabled the discom to monitor power flow, manage load growth, undertake operations and maintenance (O&M) of the network.

They help in real time monitoring of the grid and faster restoration of power supply in case of outages, he explained.

Raghuma Reddy stated that Infrared Data Association (IRDA) meters have been installed for a large number of the metered consumer base.

So far State Discoms have installed IRDA meters for 1,16,52,708 consumers. “With the installation of IRDA meters the Discoms have realised substantial benefits with improvement in the billing efficiency. This has greatly reduced cases of reading suppression,”he said.

In addition to these, TSSPDCL has undertaken a series of initiatives to improve its services, like it introduced mobile applications for reliability and end-to-end outage management in the GHMC area, Raghuma Reddy said and added that the company plans to extend this to the entire TSSPDCL distribution area.