The power industry is experiencing an enormous expansion of computer and communication devices in substations. As a result, a massive amount of measurement data is being continuously collected, communicated, and processed. This is partly due to the need for much better monitoring capability as power system loading and complexity of operation have increased. The installation of a large number of intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) to accomplish the monitoring task has created new challenges, such as cyber and physical security, time-synchronized data storage, configuration management, and efficient visualization. Automated data analytics solutions are the key to efficient use of IED recordings. This automated process includes conversion of measurements to data, processing data to obtain information, and extraction of cause-and-effect knowledge. This article provides real-life implementation examples of data analytics developed to handle measurements from digital fault recorders (DFRs) and digital protective relays (DPRs). The discussion addresses the implementation challenges and business benefits of such solutions.

This paper appears in IEEE Power and Energy (Sep/Oct 2012)

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