First SCADA Laboratory within Politehnica University of Bucharest Inaugurated
In the opening of the fifth edition of the International Conference ‘Regional South-East European Conference – RSEEC 2020’, which took place on October 12, in the presence of Mr. Antonel Tanase, Secretary General of the Government of Romania – with the rank of Minister, the first SCADA Laboratory within the Politehnica University of Bucharest was inaugurated. The endowment of the laboratory was provided by CNTEE Transelectrica SA, with the contribution of SIEMENS Energy Romania, but also of other companies operating in the energy field, such as Siemens Romania and Eneroptim SRL in partnership with the Politehnica University of Bucharest.
The SCADA Laboratory reproduce a small size 220/110 kV substations and was designed with command – control – protection equipment, similar with the most modern substations currently in operation within CNTEE Transelectrica SA portfolio, to ensure the energy transport function in safe conditions. SCADA Laboratory, coordinated by Prof.dr.eng. Constantin Bulac, Prof.dr.eng. Ion Tristiu and Conf.dr.eng. Mihai Sanduleac, is the result of collaboration between companies from the energy sector and the university environment to ensure a solid training of future power systems engineers in Romania.
Mr. Antonel Tanase delivered Prime Minister Ludovic Oban’s message saying that the Romanian Government is a partner for investment, clean energy, and a sustainable and decent life in Romania. Also, he encouraged Romanian Transmission and System Operator Transelectrica SA – whose actions are administered by the General Secretariat of the Government on behalf of the Romanian state – to continue to get involved in the university area, as it has already done by investing in this SCADA laboratory.
“I want to thank Transelectrica SA for its involvement in the university research and development area, both by equipping this laboratory and in the following projects it wants to develop in partnership with the University Politehnica of Bucharest. I encourage such steps. I myself, when I was student, I’ve had the benefit of the state support, and the young people in Romania must understand that here we have opportunities for development – opportunities to lead a decent life and to develop professionally,” Mr. Tanase stated.
“SCADA systems (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) have proven their efficiency in operation, through the appropriate allocation of resources and low energy consumption, regardless of the economic field in which they were implemented. Thus, the initiative to setting up a SCADA laboratory in the University Politehnica of Bucharest is extremely welcome, these automation systems being necessary wherever there is a technological process, because there is the only solution that offers the possibility of efficient process operation at reasonable operating costs. Although the trend of energy efficiency is presently increasingly all over the world, the digitalization of the energy sector is a priority today, and students education in this direction is essential for the development of their skills as future power systems engineers,” Mr. Mihnea Costoiu, Rector of University Politehnica of Bucharest, said.
“The endowment of the SCADA laboratory, within University Politehnica of Bucharest, Faculty of Power Engineering, marks a success of our Company in terms of actions to promote and support specialized education. The SCADA laboratory represents a consistent investment of our company in the training of the future power system engineers and for our employees’ training as well. Our vision for establishing and developing a SCADA Laboratory capability is to accelerate the understanding and adoption of technologies that will make the transition from energy systems to intelligent systems. It is our duty to come to the aid of the university environment for the training of the engineers of the future, so that they will keep up with the technological progress registered in energy sector. Therefore, a consistent collaboration between utility operators, such Transelectrica and the university environment is mandatory. In this sense, during this period we are perfecting a protocol with the University Politehnica of Bucharest, through which we intend to extend the collaboration directions for 2020 – 2024,” Mr. Catalin Nitu, Directorate Chairman of CNTEE Transelectrica SA, mentioned.
“For Siemens Energy Romania, technology is important, but the people are making the difference. Therefore, the training of the next generation of energy specialists is one of our main objectives. We thank the management of the University Politehnica of Bucharest, CNTEE Transelectrica SA and our business partners for offering us the opportunity to get involved in this project and contribute to the development of students’ practical skills,” Mr. Petru Ruset, Managing Director of Siemens Energy Romania, added.
The SCADA laboratory was equipped with monitoring and control equipment related to a command-control-protection system, used in 400/220/110 kV substations, covering various functions: monitoring and control; distance protection; transformer differential protection; overcurrent protection; differential busbar protection.
The laboratory devices are identically to the ones in service within CNTEE Transelectrica SA substations, like Stuparei 220/110kV, Targoviste 220/110 kV, Turnu Magurele 220/110kV, Roman Nord 400/220 /110 kV.
By developing application in this SCADA Laboratory, through the present state-of-art implementation the students will have the opportunity to get familiar with a modern distributed control system for high voltage substations, being able, as for real, to operate and monitor in real time the modelled 220/110 kV substation. In this way, upon completion of studies, future professionals will adapt more quickly to the management of current technological processes.
The concept and design were made by Prof.dr.eng. Constantin Bulac, dr.eng. Florin Balasiu and eng. Danut Adrian Postovei, Siemens Energy Romania. Specialists with experience in SCADA systems were responsible for the implementation and testing of the command-control-protection system related to the SCADA laboratory: eng. Danuț Adrian Postovei, eng. Viorel Patrascu and eng. Razvan Serbanescu.
