First Outdoor RC-20 Controller Installations in Australia

Australian switchgear engineering NOJA Power are celebrating the first pole-top field installations of their new RC-20 Recloser Control product. Forming part of the ARENA project for gathering of distribution utility Synchrophasor data, the Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) capable RC-20 unit will be commissioned to stream a gigabyte of GPS timestamped network data per day back to a central data warehouse for analysis.

The RC-20 is controlling a standard NOJA Power OSM Recloser, offering conventional protection to the distribution feeder whilst adding high resolution data capture in PMU format. This PMU data will be streamed via IEC 61850 Sampled Values over IP to a secure cloud data repository, with additional IEC61850 R-GOOSE reporting for any system disturbances.

NOJA Power’s participation in this ARENA project aims to capture real-time vision of the distribution grid, providing operators with unprecedented network performance analytics and granularity. The RC-20 provides distribution network service providers with a means to aim to tackle the challenges posed by intermittency and bidirectional power flow in a network with a high penetration of renewable energy.

“This project is a great example of the Australian government, the electricity utilities, Energy Queensland and AusNet, the universities, the University of Queensland and Deakin University and industry working together to create and deploy leading edge technology”, reports NOJA Power Group Managing Director Neil O’Sullivan. “The real time data logged from these devices will now be used by PhD scholars at both universities to research better ways to connect and reconnect renewable energy to the distribution grid, as well as protect and isolate faults, detect faults and even analyze the grid to detect and forecast faults before they happen all with a focus on increasing distribution grid reliability with large scale populations of renewable energy.”

NOJA Power advises the RC-20 will be available for general commercial release in 2021, whilst research projects using the platform are continuing today between DNSP partners, utilities and government organizations. The RC-20 will take its place as the flagship recloser controller product for NOJA Power, supported alongside their RC-10 standard offering and RC-15 communications augmented variants.