The ‘Digital substation. Digital switchgear as a part of the NPP power distribution scheme’ project has commenced at the Rosenergoatom Joint-Stock Company (a part of the Electric Power Division of the Rosatom State Corporation).

The Open Switchgear-330 kilowatt of the Leningrad NPP was chosen as the pilot production site.

The goal of the project is to get the experience in operating a digital substation equipment, trial the technologies and the method for receiving the data and measure its reliability and economic efficiency.

‘The primary objective of the digital substation project is to study the possibilities of improving the efficiency of the NPP’s electric part, get hands-on experience of working with digital measurement transformers and the digital protective relay. We are to evaluate the economic benefits of switching to digital distribution devices and deploy this technology across other facilities in case the pilot project shows positive outcomes. As a result, we will create a new product – a digital substation, which has lots of commercial potential both within the country and all over the world’, Lyubov Andreeva, the director of digital energy and commercial dispatching department at Rosenergoatom, said.

As the first step to implement the project, Rosenergoatom will prepare a set of technical requirements on the open switchgear upgrade that will be included into the technical specification for the Leningrad NPP open switchgear-330 kilowatt reconstruction documentation elaboration.

All subsequent project-related activities will be included into the roadmap on project documentation development for the full-scale open switchgear-330 kilowatt modernization and the Roadmap on replacing switches, voltage transformers and Relay Protection and Automation Devices at the Leningrad NPP open switchgear-330 kilowatt.

The project is due to be completed in 2021-2022.