DEER is a Romanian electricity distribution company operating under the Electrica Group, who operate over 41% of Romania’s electricity networks, serving 3.8 million customers. It manages the electricity distribution network across 18 counties in Romania, serving approximately 3.8 million customers.

The company is committed to modernising its infrastructure, enhancing energy efficiency, and integrating renewable energy sources to meet the evolving demands of the energy sector.

Elecon is an electrical installation specialist based in Romania, who help their customers connect to networks safely and efficiently.

Our solution

Synaptec’s MCP solution provided DEER with a passive, no maintenance protection system, that provides auto-reclose functionality on a faulted cable section. This enabled the operator to easily identify faults, whilst reducing the frequency and duration of line interruptions, as well as improving the safety and availability of their network.

The solution utilised Distributed Electrical Sensing (DES), a precision measurement technology that allowed power operators to protect their networks with unprecedented flexibility. Using the existing optical fibre within the power network, DES made high fidelity measurements of current at many locations over distances of up to 60 km from the substation.

The entire sensor array is passive, meaning no control power, data networks or ongoing maintenance or recalibration is required at each sensing location. Installation is simple, as the sensors connect to industry-standard CTs, reducing equipment footprint and cost, as well as minimising the scheduled outage time to install.

Synaptec deployed an outdoor IP rated single-phase Passive Secondary Converter for Current (PSC-1-C) and a split core Current Transformer (CT) at each phase of the power cables at the remote transition tower, just below the cable sealing ends bushings, which connects back to the substation via existing optical fibre.

Two three-phase Passive Secondary Converters for Current (PSC-3-C), and two DES Interrogators were also rack-mounted in the substation, which connected to existing line protection CTs. Combining the Interrogators with twelve passive sensors created two discrete protection zones between GIS and the start of the overhead line section.

Once installation was complete, the DES Interrogators issued time-critical trip and control commands, using both conventional dry contact and IEC 61850 GOOSE, after identifying faults within 5 milliseconds, for their respective circuits.

This provided DEER with an instant and precision-based protection response, issuing auto-reclose blocking commands when faults are detected within the cable section, and permitting auto-reclose when the fault occurs in the overhead line section.

The Remetea substation.