The first 500 kV smart substation of State Grid was built

The first batch of pilot projects for smart substation construction of the State Grid—Jinhua Power Grid’s 500kV Zhifu Transformer pilot project was put into operation recently. This is the first attempt to upgrade the 500 kV substation directly from digital to intelligent, marking Zhejiang’s first attempt. Another major breakthrough has been made by the power company's smart grid construction. This is also the 500 kilovolt smart substation that is currently being built by the State Grid.

In August 2009, State Grid Corporation of China identified nine substations nationwide as a pilot (demonstration) project for smart grid construction. The Jinhua Electric Power Bureau 500 kilowatts was selected as the only 500 kV upgraded substation. The contents of this intelligent upgrade mainly include five items: intelligent equipment and on-line monitoring, construction of an information integration platform, intelligent operation and maintenance, advanced application development, and intelligent transformation of auxiliary systems.

“Taking smart operations and maintenance as an example, all routine maintenance of conventional substations should be completed manually. For instance, regular inspections of on-site equipment or infra-red temperature measurement methods to detect hidden defects of equipment are now completed through intelligent inspection systems. "He Yunliang, chief engineer of the Jinhua Electric Power Bureau, said. With the commissioning of the project, a series of new technologies and equipment such as optical electronic transformers have been applied for the first time.