Tianjin: Construction of a power distribution IoT demonstration zone

On December 26, 2019, at the No. 1 Substation of Meiyunyuan, Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City, Liu Huifang, deputy director of the Power Distribution Operation and Inspection Office of the Operation and Inspection Department of Tianjin Binhai Power Supply Company and deputy director of the Power Supply Service Command Center, took over a laptop from the on-site intelligent fusion terminal technician. After carefully looking at the data collected from the terminal equipment for the two application scenarios of automatic topology identification and lean line loss management, she said: "The topology identification is wrong, and the classification of the cable branch box and the household meter is wrong. The three-level topology relationship of 'transformer-box-household' is required. Let's improve it as soon as possible."

2019 is the year for State Grid Corporation of China to improve the management of world-class urban distribution network construction. "Building a distribution Internet of Things demonstration zone with intelligent distribution and transformation terminals as the core" has been written into the company's world-class urban distribution network management improvement year action plan. Many cities have launched special construction of distribution Internet of Things demonstration zones. Tianjin Binhai New Area is one of the demonstration zones.

The power distribution IoT demonstration zone of Binhai New Area was established in Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City. Liu Huifang became a member of the "two-network integration" working group. She said: "In 2019, we focused on low-voltage information construction, involving 26 10kV feeders, 88 distribution rooms, 114 ring network boxes, 58 box-type substations, and 350 distribution substations. There are also 17 overhead substations that pilot the installation of substation dynamic identification devices and energy-saving phase-changing switches."

In the early stage of construction, Liu Huifang led the team to carefully collect the operating data of the low-voltage equipment in the Eco-City in the past two years, including voltage and current curves, load growth curves, fault hotspots, customer concerns, etc., and finally passed the company's review and formed a complete construction plan. Liu Huifang said: "Building the power distribution Internet of Things is by no means a simple installation of various IoT sensing terminals on the equipment. It is necessary not only to consider reasonable configuration from the perspective of solving practical problems in production and operation, but also to develop application APPs with a problem-oriented approach to achieve the goal of both investment and benefits."

At present, with the support of advanced IoT sensing and edge computing technologies, the Binhai Power Supply Company's power distribution IoT demonstration area has achieved a transition from passive fault repair to precise proactive repair for customer power outages, with repair efficiency increased by 25% year-on-year; in the distribution area, it has achieved real-time monitoring of line losses and accurate positioning of abnormal locations, achieving the goal of lean control of line losses. In the three-phase unbalanced power distribution area, Binhai Power Supply Company has achieved real-time monitoring of voltage curves, three-phase current imbalance, and voltage and current harmonic distortion rates by installing phase-changing switches and integrating terminal edge computing, thereby optimizing the management of power quality. "In the new year, we will continue to meet challenges," said Liu Huifang.