A substation is a part of an electrical generation, transmission, and distribution system. Substations transform voltage from high to low, or the reverse, or perform any of several other important functions. Between the generating station and consumer, electric power may flow through several substations at different voltage levels.
Distributed generation is generation that is directly connected to a Local Distribution Company (LDC) without going through the Hydro One transmission system.
The system reliability with Distributed Generation (DG) partially depends on the ability of the LDC to regulate voltage and efficiently route energy from branch feeders that have surplus power to branch feeders that at that need additional power. The complexity of the required control and monitoring system increases with the number of connected generators.
As the control and monitoring system complexity increases, so also does the signal system bandwidth required to support that control and monitoring system. Within a metropolitan area control and monitoring signals are easily transmitted via short range UHF/microwave mesh networks. However, in rural areas of Ontario reliable transmission of wideband control and monitoring signals can be a major challenge.
At the time of writing (December 6, 2015) Hydro One is many years behind in implementation of its smart metering system. About 90% of the Hydro One smart meters are operational. However, most of the remaining 10% are in locations where the only practical method of meter data acquisition is via the consumer's wireless internet service. The equipment and software for this method of meter data acquisition has not been deployed. The Ministry of Energy and Hydro One both failed to adequately consider this issue in the Ontario smart meter implementation plan.
The advent of widespread distributed generation has resulted in independent power producers supplying power to the radial distribution network. This has created a multidirectional power flow situation on parts of the distribution network which
were originally designed for unidirectional power flow only. This fundamental change in operating principle can restrict the operation of the protection system causing false tripping of feeders (sympathetic tripping), blinding of protection and increased or decreased fault levels. This paper presents the potential problems distributed generation creates for a protection system. The authors use examples of case studies which have attempted to identify the impact on the utility protection performance following a proposed connection of distributed generation to specific areas of the Irish distribution network.