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Successful Delivery Of 65 Substation Control Systems for National Grid Transco (NGT)
National Grid Transco owns and operates the Electricity Transmission Network in England and Wales. The network encompasses some 320 substations and around 14,600 kilometres of underground and overhead transmission lines. The 320 substations are largely de-manned and operated from a central location. To achieve this remote control, NGT has installed Substation Control Systems (SCS).
Due to the vast number of SCSs and given the design life of these systems being 15 years, the programme to refurbish these systems is an ongoing yearly task. Capula was awarded a contract to develop the new generation of SCSs for NGT.
As the main contractor, over a 3-year period Capula managed the project:
- Providing functional design specification for the SCS
- Managing the development of 3rd party products for the specific NGT applications
- Developing SCADA and configuration tools to interface with 3rd party products
- Joint type testing to NGT's extensive technical specifications
- Delivering a prototype system to Bolney
- Substation delivery of production standard systems to 10 other substations
Timely delivery was particularly important as access to the substation to carry out the control system refurbishment is limited by National Grid Transco's outage plans. Any changes to these plans have a severe impact on National Grid Transco's transmission business.
As a result of successfully delivering the above project Capula has continued to supply systems to National Grid Transco, key achievements being:
- A further 55 substation control and SCADA systems including the configuration and validation of in excess of 200,000 system points and 2,000 screen drawings
- 3 product enhancement development projects
- Supplying SCSs to some of the largest high voltage substations in the world
Initially Capula was only responsible for delivery and installation of the SCS at site, with the commissioning to plant done by NGT. However, over the years NGT has placed a greater emphasis on the SCS supplier carrying out the entire scope of delivery. Capula now provides plant interface engineering and commissioning services.
Capula's Support Service group through a Service Level Agreement provides the support for these systems. We provide 24/7/365 cover with response times to site required by NGT, dependent on geographical location of between 4 and 6 hours.
A set of bespoke training courses has also been created and delivered to over 100 NGT staff, to ensure NGT keep its operation, maintenance and senior technical staff fully trained.
In order to incorporate the ongoing changes of the NGT transmission network into the SCS, a data management team has been created within our Support Service group. The team's work includes data configuration changes, modification to screen drawings, documentation updates and validation of changes and loading of changes at site. As a further vote of confidence, Capula was then asked to take on the data management of a further 120 legacy METRO Substation Control Systems.