Protection Data Management System Implementation | National Grid SA

National Grid Saudi Arabia (SA) is celebrating with the software system house IPS Intelligent Process Solutions GmbH (IPS) the successful implementation of the “Protection Data Management System (PDMS)” for their transmission network after only ten months of work.

Due to the significant importance of the entire project, National Grid SA arranged the finalization ceremony to reflect on the two project phases. The top management, including CEO Mr. Laith Al Bassam of National Grid SA, attended the ceremony  to acknowledge IPS and its innovative and path-breaking Asset and Protection Management Software Solution for Electrical Power Networks.

National Grid SA declared this project as a reference and the world’s first and most prominent project in the field of Protection Data and Setting Management Software implementation for power networks. Data from more than 120,000 protection relays with more than 170,000,000 setting parameters have been collected kingdom-wide by IPS and NG engineers, verified, and migrated into centralized IPS®EPIS (Enterprise Protection Information System) within the first phase.

Phases of the project

The successful accomplishment of the first phase was only possible by using IPS Field Data Collection (IPS®FDC), a wizard-based field data collection tool. This IPS software tool specializes in protective relay data collection and offers the opportunity for remote and automated data quality supervision. It allows field data collection in the shortest and optimized time with controlled data quality and automated data conversion in the production system. Additionally, IPS established a World Remote Data Control and Supervision Center, which acts as a control and supervision center for all data collecting activities world-wide.

The scope of the second phase contained the development of a company-wide CIM XML network topology model and the integration of IPS®CAPE software – a product from our US technology partner Electrocon International, Inc. (EII). An important part of this phase was mapping the existing IPS®Enterprise Protection Information System (IPS®EPIS) hierarchical data model with a CIM XML Topological Model to establish integrated and highly automated protection setting calculations. This set the fundament for Wide Area Protection Coordination (WAPC) done by Quanta Technologies.

This project was explicitly recognized (or rewarded) by National Grid Saudi Arabia due to the very efficient and selfless knowledge transfer to NG engineers. Today, NG engineers independently manage this high-end technology and are among the top world-class users.

Due to the successful implementation of the Protection Data Management System, National Grid SA and IPS signed a contract for a new big project in 2017. Within this new project, IPS has optimized the maintenance process and upgraded the IPS®EPIS to an IPS®ENERGY Enterprise Asset Data and Maintenance Management System with more than 1200 users.
At the beginning of 2016, after the successful rollout of PDMS Phase 1 (Protection Data Management System), IPS started the second phase of the PDMS project at Saudi Electricity Company’s transmissions department, National Grid SA..

The scope of the second phase included developing a company-wide CIM XML network model integrating IPS®CAPE and mapping the existing IPS Enterprise Protection Information System (IPS®EPIS) to establish integrated protection data management with automated WAPC (Wide Area Protection Coordination).

In this project, IPS integrated IPS®CAPE. Furthermore, IPS Group was cooperating with Quanta Technology to finalize the world’s first and most significant project, which is implementing a country-wide Protection Data Management System within ten months. The project included more than 120,000 protection relays with more than 100,000,000 setting parameters.