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2001 IEEE T&D Expo

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Atlanta, 30 Oct – 2Nov 2001

This was a large event, with over 9,000 attendees, 500 exhibitors, and 150 technical papers. Sponsored by the IEEE Power Engineering Society, it focuses strictly on T&D technology, though a number of special panel sessions dealt with big picture questions.

A great deal of information is still available online at:
http://www.ieeet-d.org/
Using the buttons on the left side, “Conference” goes to a complete program listing, and “Exposition” to the exhibitor list, complete with urls for most companies. The technical papers were published on a CD.

–Opening Session

Teddy Püttgen, PES President Elect, opened the conference with the comment that electric utilities continue to be “technology enabled” rather than “technology driven”, but that is changing. Allen Franklin, CEO of the Southern Co, explained that the spinoff of Mirant enables SoCo to focus specifically on the southeast. with its vertically integrated companies, competitive generation, and new services. He sees transmission as the hottest issue, e.g. in Congress. John Rice of GE Power sees big promise in digital networking of generation and T&D. David Stump of ABB expressed a similar vision, applying ABB’s corporate-wide “Industrial IT” strategy to the utility industry. Based on the experience in the UK, Ian Davis of National Grid talked about the need for incentives for T&D investment, efficiency and performance, leading to an emphasis on asset management. Franklin came across as a very traditional utility executive, when he dismissed fuel cells, quoting “30 years ago fuel cells were almost ready. They still are.”

–SuperSession- Deregulation

The presentions were far ranging and exhaustive, and it would take many pages to give the full flavor. Charles Stalone (former FERC commissioner) took a long time to explain the issues before Congress, to strike the right balance between free markets and protections against market power abuse. David Jermain, Anderson Consulting, gave an entertaining review of the history of California’s debacle– based on a very faulty design, state officials made it much worse once things began to unravel. (I have his powerpoint presentation which he kindly sent, along with an ok to share it selectively.) Mark Rossi (Barker, Dunn & Rossi) reviewed utility deregulation around the world. Many countries are doing it, some quite successfully, though no-one gets it right at first. Richard Tabors (Tabors, Caramanis & Assoc) discussed regulation of generators, and pointed out that price volatility is intrinsic to any commodity market–it’s the journalists who renamed it “spikes” in the case of electricity. Finally Paul Addison (SolomonSmith Barney) said that customers really care about total price, not the profits of individual players. Service penalties and bonuses are needed if there is to be any incentive for investment in T&D.

–“How to Become a 3rd World Utility”
In a panel session on T&D Reliability, Jim Burke of ABB outlined 10 steps to reducing reliability.
1. Eliminate experienced engineers; replace with young ones who won’t stay.
2. Don’t participate in standards setting.
3. Lose control over generation and transmission
4. Replace things only when they fail; keep for 50 years or more til there are no spare parts.
5. Buy on price (first cost). Don’t pay for quality.
6. Eliminate R&D
7. Reduce manpower and budgets
8. Overload equipment thus increasing failure rates.
9. Lose control over daily activities–overdo outsourcing.
10. NIMBY – no new T&D but not no growth
[ I can supply a pdf of this paper, from the conference CD]

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I visited a number of exhibitors. Here are some highlights.

– Arbiter Systems Inc. http://www.arbiter.com
High precision meters, traceable to NIST.
Can error-correct any meter to be much more accurate.
GPS clocks. Other interesting innovations..used by NxtPhase

– Cannon Technologies http://www.cannontech.com
Monitoring and control of loads and devices
Yukon modular software for distrib autom and demand mgt
eSubstation…low cost ($25K per substn)
Impressive customer list Sell only to utilities.
Started in ’87 w/ purch of a wireless subsidiary of ABB.
Announcing marketing deal with Honeywell soon. (load control thermostats)

– DTE Energy Technologies–“CableWise”
http://www.dtetech.com/technologies/cablewise/
The “only” insitu inservice live cable test capability–uses partial discharge
[[ Is it really true? Has this “holy grail” finally been found?]]

– IFD Corporation http://www.ifdcorporation.com
Clever little mechanical popout device the goes inside distribution transformer to indicate an overpressure has occurred- which means that a fault has occurred inside. Visible from the street. [Sort of like the gadget that tells you your turkey is cooked.]

– IMCORP http://imcorp.uconn.edu
Cable testing products and services. Experts in partial discharge. Company is on campus at Univ Connecticut, led by prominent professor. Took back license from UltraPower (Minn, MN) which closed.

– NxtPhase http://www.nxtphase.com
Optical PT/CT. Looking very strong. {See UFTO Note 22 Jun 2000}

– Power Line Systems http://www.powline.com
T-Line design/management software to 500 utilities worldwide.

– Power Measurement Ltd. http://www.pml.com/
Hi end meters for revenue and PQ monitoring. for large customers. OEM to ABB and Siemens. Sev. new simpler cheaper products.

– Serveron Corp. http://www.serveron.com
Monitoring transformer gas in oil, and battery systems. Received a lot of attention at their booth, and appear to be progressing rapidly. [See UFTO Note 14 May 2001}

=====Substation monitoring=====
(Besides GE, Serveron, Cannon, etc.)

– DoubleTree Systems http://www.dsius.com
comprehensive solution..have installations in China. Systems Control Inc. alumni

– Doble http://www.doble.com/
Has abandoned development of “InSite”. Doing individual modules instead, for later “integration” at IP level. First is for bushings. Will announce a transformer pkg very soon

=====Power Switching=====

ABB – AX1 Air insulated Medium Voltage Switchgear.
1/2 the footprint, cheaper, arcing eliminated, simple installation, low/no maintenance.
http//:www.abb.com — search for AX1

=====Other=====

Pole Plus http://www.poleplus.com
N Amer lic for EdF developed wood pole testing technology and management system. Acceptance is growing. [See UFTO Note 11 Jun 1999]

MiniMax Software Corp. http://www.minimax.net
Video surveillance specifically for substation monitoring, Also a distribution system “stakeout” pen-based computing solution.

The Valley Group. http://www.cat-1.com
Device measures trans. line cable tension directly; Plus nearby measurement of temperature the cable would be if unloaded — gives direct realtime reading of maximum possible loading.

NxtPhase Optical I, V Transducers for High Voltage

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NxtPhase Optical I, V Transducers for High Voltage

NxtPhase Corp., Vancouver BC, has developed a family of optical sensors to measure current, voltage, and power in high voltage power systems. These devices appear to be on the verge of becoming a commercial reality, and offer high accuracy, bandwidth and dynamic range. Integrated into the all-digital electronic substation measurement and control system of the future, they will help revolutionize metering, protection, and power quality management.

These optical voltage and current sensing technologies came out of two parallel independent development programs – one in the US and the other in Canada.

Current Sensor–
Honeywell applied fiber-optic gyro technology developed for demanding civil and military navigation applications to the measurement of current, and teamed with Texas A&M to produce a sensor. The first deployment was with Arizona Public Service at the Cholla Generating Station in 1997 where accuracy of 0.03 per cent has been demonstrated. Honeywell entered into a partnership NxtPhase, who has a complementary voltage technology and a similar market vision.

Voltage Sensor–
The other half of the NxtPhase story begins with Carmanah Engineering Ltd. – a successful hi-tech spin-off from the University of British Columbia (UBC). Carmanah, UBC and BC Hydro partnered to develop an integrated optic voltage sensing technology based on a unique electric field sensor called the Integrated Optic Pockels Cell (IOPC). Significant technological breakthroughs led to an extremely accurate optical voltage transducer that avoids the environmental concerns of alternative optical or conventional technologies. The first IOPC sensor was successfully deployed in 1997 at the Ingledow substation of BC Hydro.

Optical Voltage and Current Transducer–
The NXVCT combines both the optical voltage and current transducers in one instrument, over the range of transmission voltages from 69 kV to 765 kV.

Applications include:
– Accurate metering of independent power plants (The dynamic range means accuracy at 1 amp and at 100,000 amps. This can have substantial revenue implications, with the ability to measure power inflow when a plant is not producing power);
– High bandwidth monitoring of power plants, i.e. transients and harmonics; and
– High voltage power quality measurements, to diagnose equipment failures.

Very shortly a technology alliance with BC Hydro will be announced. BC Hydro will conduct field trials to test and demonstrate the devices at one of its high voltage substations to verify performance over time, and at various operating temperatures. The company is looking for customers, partners and investors. They are already in discussions with several UFTO companies and others.

For more information about the company and its products, the website is:
http://www.nxtphase.com/

Contact:
Richard MacKellar, CEO, NxtPhase Corp., Vancouver BC
604-215-9822 x 222, rmackellar@nxtphase.com

Steve Dolling, Director, Marketing
604-215-9822 x233, sdolling@nxtphase.com

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Further details on the technology are available:
http://www.nxtphase.com/nx3.htm

“Design Options Using Optical Current and Voltage Transducers
in a High Voltage Substation”
IEEE PES Substation Committee Annual Meeting May 1, 2000
Powerpoint presentation gives a good overview.

http://www.nxtphase.com/IEEE_substation_meeting_final_version.ppt

Here is the first page of each of two articles, and links for the pdf downloads.

“Optical Voltage Transducers for High-Voltage Applications”
http://www.nxtphase.com/NXVT.pdf

Optical methods for the measurement of current and voltage in high-voltage (HV) environments have been attracting more and more attention in the recent years. This is mostly due to the advantages that they offer over conventional instrument transformers. They provide immunity to electromagnetic interference, are typically non-intrusive, provide excellent galvanic isolation, are much lighter and, therefore, easier to transport and install. Early work on optical current and voltage sensing in the HV environment started in the 1970’s [1-5] leading to more practical and accurate systems developed in the 1980’s and 1990’s [6-13]. Also, at the commercial level, current sensing technology (both for technical and economical reasons) led voltage sensing technology. In this paper, we present results obtained using NxtPhase’s optical voltage transducer, NXVT.

Most practical optical voltage sensors use electric field sensors that operate using the linear electro-optic (or Pockels) effect. It should be noted that the sensors themselves are, strictly speaking, electric field sensors and not voltage sensors. However, various means of getting a one-to-one relationship between the voltage applied and the electric field sensed are used to derive voltage. For example the entire voltage can be applied across the electro-optic crystal, or a capacitive divider can be used to apply a well-known fraction of the voltage to be measured across an optical electric field sensors. There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these methods. Nevertheless, most successful devices in the past have used optical fibers for the transmission of light, bulk electric field sensors as sensing elements, and SF6 gas for insulation.

The NXVT introduced here combines the typical benefits of optical sensing technology with some additional features that provide further benefits to the user. For example, it does not use SF6 or oil-paper insulation, making it more environmentally friendly and much safer to use. The NXVT uses multiple miniature electric field sensors inside a high-quality post insulator, in a proprietary manner, to measure voltage with high accuracy.

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“Optical Current Transducers for High Voltage Applications”
http://www.nxtphase.com/NXCT.pdf

Background
Over the past 15 years, optical current sensors have received significant attention by a number of research groups around the world as next generation high voltage measurement devices, with a view to replacing iron-core current transformers in the electric power industry. Optical current sensors bring the significant advantages that they are non-conductive and lightweight, which can allow for much simpler insulation and mounting designs. In addition, optical sensors do not exhibit hysteresis and provide a much larger dynamic range and frequency response than iron-core CTs.

A common theme of many of the optical current sensors is that they work on the principle of the Faraday effect. Current flowing in a conductor induces a magnetic field, which, through the Faraday effect, rotates the plane of polarization of the light traveling in a sensing path encircling the conductor. Ampere’s law guarantees that if the light is uniformly sensitive to magnetic field all along the sensing path, and the sensing path defines a closed loop, then the accumulated rotation of the plane of polarization of the light is directly proportional to the current flowing in the enclosed wire. The sensor is insensitive to all externally generated magnetic fields such as those created by currents flowing in nearby wires. A measurement of the polarization state rotation thus yields a measurement of the desired current.

The optical current transducer being developed by NxtPhase (the NXCT) is an offshoot from the Honeywell fiber optic gyro program. Honeywell has been producing fiber optic gyros for a variety of commercial aviation applications since 1992. Extensive life and reliability testing has been carried out on the product to meet the stringent flight qualification criteria. Early on, Honeywell realized that this technology, with only minor modifications, could be applied to the field of current sensing, and a program to diversify into this area was maintained by Honeywell for several years. In late 1999, Honeywell joined with Carmanah Engineering to launch NxtPhase with the charter of commercializing the technology.

Principle of Operation
The NXCT uses the Faraday effect, but in a different architecture than the more well known polarimetric technique. The NXCT is a fiber optic current sensor and it works on the principle that the magnetic field, rather than rotating a linearly polarized light wave, changes the velocities of circularly polarized light waves within a sensing fiber wound around the current carrying conductor [1]. The effect is the same Faraday effect but differently formulated. We have found in our experience and heritage from the Honeywell fiber-optic gyroscope program that, for a variety of reasons, it is easier to accurately measure changes in light velocity than changes in polarization state. Chief among these reasons is that by using a velocity measurement scheme, we do not need to construct the sensing region from annealed fiber which is brittle and difficult to work with in a production environment.