A newly established power plant in India is seeking a solution to integrate data from various models of electricity meters and protection relays within the plant. The plant has installed over 300 power meters and more than 400 relays of different brands and models for power monitoring, control, and protection.

The 1,370 MW (2x685 MW) supercritical coal-based power plant is located in the Raikheda block of the Tilda district in Raipur. It has over 300 power meters and more than 400 protection relays from various brands and models, which are used for monitoring, control, and protection of the power system. The plant’s Distributed Control System (DCS) is struggling to integrate data from downstream equipment, including Indian brands, ABB, Beckwith, Areva, and GE Multiin. Most devices use Modbus and IEC protocols, but some also rely on custom Modbus protocols. Additionally, the system needs to acquire energy data, waveform data, event logs, and energy reports.

The challenge of the project, besides integrating devices with standard protocols, lies in developing different drivers for devices with custom protocols. Another key issue is the communication protocol used to interface with the DCS. OPC was ultimately chosen as the upstream transmission protocol for central monitoring, excluding waveform data. Our proposed solution, PecStar EMSO, is not just a front-end data acquisition software but a comprehensive enterprise solution designed for data analysis and reporting purposes.