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Physical Security & Monitoring


Utilities Await New Physical Security Standard

U.S. regulator takes next step in approving physical security standard BY PHILL FELTHAM, Editor-in-Chief Electricity Today Magazine Recently, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced a proposal to approve the physical security reliability standard (CIP-014-1), submitted by the...

Substation Technologies


The Digital Substation Utopia

Electric utilities have long considered digital substations an insubstantial concept: an ideal vision of all-knowing substations networked into an intelligent grid. However, technological innovations have slowly emerged in the past few decades, consequently, transforming this utopian vision into a...

Breakers & Relays


Storm-Hardened Switchgear

How to protect electrical equipment from Mother Nature BY ROBERT A. MURPHY, Trayer Engineering Corporation The U.S. National Weather Service called Hurricane Sandy the most destructive storm of 2012’s unusually active Atlantic hurricane season. Sandy delivered unprecedented damage across a wide...

Substation Testing & Maintenance


Substation Focused on Environmental Design

One of the important trends in design of new overhead lines over the past 20 years has been development of structures and designs that are less obtrusive and more pleasing visually. Much the same process has also been going on at substations. For example, even 25 years ago, efforts had already been...

Substation Protection


Transmission Planning for Grid Security

Recent physical attacks on substations have heightened the industry’s awareness of the necessity for physical security of critical facilities on the bulk power system. The goal of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) reliability...

Lightning Protection


Grounding System Maintenance Guide

Grounding systems are a crucially important component of any power supply system, because they directly impact public and employee safety, supply system reliability, power quality and life expectancy of power equipment. In spite of their crucial role in safe, reliable, and economic operation of...

Electrical Substations

Ethernet Cable Selection for Utilities

Electric utilities are constantly searching for the most efficient, reliable and cost-effective methods to deliver electricity to customers. A vision for accomplishing this is the migration of the electrical grid from a reliable, but inflexible system to the Smart Grid, which promises adaptability and efficiency.

One definition of the Smart Grid, based on work from the U.S. Department of Energy, is: "A modernized electrical grid that uses information and communications technology to gather and act on information in an automated fashion…to improve the efficiency, reliability, economics, and sustainability of the production and distribution of electricity".

The promises of the Smart Grid are exciting on many fronts...

Electrical Substations Articles