AI and Power Engineering - Part 5 | ETAP Interface and Project / Protection Audit
ETAP Protection Audit
A couple of days ago I shared a post on a protection audit of a DIgSILENT model. This is a small continuation of the same idea, with the model connected to ETAP this time.
The process is almost the same, but the interface to ETAP was different, as it follows a different model structure and databased system. Once the interfaces were remapped, we could use the same protection audit rulebook as before and just apply to the new software and project!
As before it is a small simple network just to test the ideas out on. The response and report back from the AI was good, and picked up most of the issues I could remember from the project. In this case it was genuinely useful as I did the protection study back in 2020, and could not remember much about the site at all!
Audit Output
This is an example of where the AI approach really starts to earn its keep. Protection coordination studies, are a slow, careful and complicated process, that often requires checking, rechecking and back tracking on settings. It is easy to get lost in fields of data on the more complex relays. The protection audit approach allows you to take a step back and really check a project for a final time.
The audit report is the same style and format as the DIgSILENT audit I created. As before, the audit is by no means perfect and it has missed a few subtleties of the protection scheme, where it necessary to tweak settings to get better overall grading - which is an inherently subjective process. The rules I had developed for the AI and audit parameters are still a work in progress, but still reasonably effective.
Download the ETAP protection audit report (PDF)
Summary
The key takeaway from this exercise is to see how an AI, with the correct interface and rule structure can really start to shine at a commercial level and can interface with both DIgSILENT and ETAP. With a bit of care and setup it can automate and review a whole system and check for inconsistencies within protection. It needs a bit of refinement this tool is a serious development, as it allows an engineer to inspect and assess large networks and audit them against pre-defined rulesets and look for weak parts of the system. It does not replace the human, it just helps them spot things that we might otherwise miss.