The ‘East Oahu Transmission Project – Phase 2’ will automate high-load distribution circuits feeding sections of eastern Oahu. It offers a system design and operations approach, minimizing construction impacts to the community and reducing potential outage times.
The scope of the project includes establishing an intelligent 46kV substation feeder infrastructure integrated with the existing control center systems, including feeder automation, installing intelligent substation controllers, automated switches and reclosers to isolate and restore power; advanced control center grid visualization, intelligent information analysis/filtering and tools for ‘predictive analysis’ of operations problems; extension of standard/open communication for the 46kV sub-transmission system; and development of a standard repeatable installation process.
Harold Kageura, vice president of energy delivery at Hawaiian Electric, said: “With Siemens’ help, Hawaiian Electric has developed a smart grid automation methodology that will be applied to eight substations in a critical urban load center in Honolulu. The grant will help fund a $15.4m project to help us continue to enhance our grid and provide reliable power to Oahu residents.”
David Pacyna, senior vice president and general manager of transmission and distribution divisions at Siemens, said: “The approach is focused on reliability improvement while maximizing asset life, increasing asset utilization and overall value. It moves Hawaiian Electric’s distribution grid design from an ‘adding more capacity for reliability’ paradigm to one of leveraging existing capacity through monitoring, control and automation for improved reliability.”
