Our projects
Learn more about Synaptec’s projects across a range of applications in the power grids, renewables and industrial sectors.
Digital substations
UK’s first digital substation with ScottishPower, UK
ScottishPower are a UK transmission system operator. Their FITNESS project demonstrated for the first time in the UK a digital substation with full IEC 61850 interoperability, with the goal of reducing copper use and overall substation size by 10%. The Synaptec systems monitored two substation bays and demonstrated successful interoperability with ABB and GE equipment.
Equipment installed: DES Interrogators and Secondary Connected Modules for Current | Communication protocol: IEC 61850-9-2 | Live since: 2018
Centralised digital busbar protection with Statnett, Norway
Synaptec instrumented six bays of Statnett’s Furuset transmission substation to deliver a centralised and digitalised busbar protection scheme, and provided new asset condition monitoring data, through one centralised system. This achieved several goals for Statnett, including demonstrating IEC 61850 device interoperability, reducing scheduled outage times for protection hardware upgrades from weeks to days, eliminating the need for merging units and copper wiring, and generating new digital twin data to automate future condition monitoring approaches.
Equipment installed: DES Interrogator, Secondary Connected Module for Current Photonic Strain Sensor, and Photonic Temperature Sensor | Communication protocol: IEC 61850-9-2 | Live since: 2019
Wide-area protection
Multi-ended circuit protection with SSEN, UK
To facilitate new grid connections from renewable generation schemes in remote locations, and to overcome the limitations of distance protection in multi-terminal circuits, SSEN deployed Synaptec systems to instrument a three-ended multi-terminal 275 kV circuit over a radius of around 50 km. This enables a wide-area, and fully digital, unit protection scheme that is resilient to loss-of-sync and requires active electronics at only one location. IEC 61850 interoperability was demonstrated between Synaptec and protection equipment provided by ABB, GE, and SEL.
Equipment installed: DES Interrogator and Photonic Current Transducers | Communication protocol: IEC 61850-9-2 | Live since: 2020
Validating thermal capacity models for overhead power lines with European transmission system operator
Having established a national thermal capacity model for future dynamic rating of critical circuits, this customer requested Synaptec to retrofit passive sensors on HV phase conductors to validate the model. This is done by monitoring temperature, vibration, and line sag on a span with a passive sensor requiring no power supply, batteries, maintenance, or 4G telecoms infrastructure. Synaptec’s Synthesis® software solution provides live visualisation of these mechanical parameters to which current data can be added to provide live ampacity from any location with minimal equipment footprint.
Equipment installed: DES Interrogator, Synthesis® and Overhead Line Sensor | Communication protocol: IEC 61850-9-2 | Live since: 2022
Mixed Circuit Protection (MCP) with Tata Power, India
Tata Power is the largest power generation company in India. Synaptec commissioned a Mixed Circuit Protection system on a 110 kV mixed circuit (which contains both overhead lines and underground cables) to improve post-event protection response by permitting auto-reclose on transient overhead faults, while blocking auto-reclose for faults within cable sections. This scheme demonstrates how Synaptec’s equipment can instrument up to five cable sections in series or parallel over unmatched distances from substations.
Equipment installed: DES Interrogator, Photonic Current Transducer and Secondary Connected Module for Current | Communication protocol: IEC 61850-9-2 and IEC 61850 GOOSE | Live since: 2022
Wide-area condition monitoring
Underground cable monitoring with Red Eléctrica de España, Spain
Red Eléctrica de España (REE), the transmission operator of Spain, undergrounded a 12 km section of a critical 400 kV circuit near the capital Madrid. Like most HV cable circuits, it is comprised of multiple sections and cross-bonding points, which are recognised to account for around 69% of all power cable failures. REE required an automated, passive, low-footprint, and zero-maintenance monitoring solution. The Synaptec solution provides live electrical and thermal data from cross-bonding locations to facilitate earlier warning of failure precursors compared to traditional manual inspection and monitoring techniques. The system monitors the relationship between load current, sheath current, and temperatures at inaccessible and remote cross-bonding locations using passive sensors connected by standard optical fibre. Streaming IEC 61850-9-2 data generated by the sensor array is analysed by Synthesis® to validate and compare with REE’s own models of the asset behaviour.
Equipment installed: DES Interrogators, Synthesis®, Secondary Connected Module for Voltage, Photonic Current Transducer and Photonic Temperature Transducer | Communication protocol: IEC 61850-9-2 | Live since: 2022
Mixed Circuit Protection with European Transmission System Operator
Synaptec is undertaking a multi-year supply framework contract with a transmission system operator to provide instrumentation systems that enhance protection of mixed circuits. Each Mixed Circuit Protection (MCP) system typically consists of six sensors, either primary or secondary connected, and an Interrogator. Each system provides ultra-fast (<10 ms) fault detection in remote underground cable sections and thereby permits or block auto-reclose functionality to be retained even where the undergrounded section is extremely remote (up to 75 km from the substation).
Equipment installed: DES Interrogator and Photonic Current Transducer | Communication protocol: IEC 61850-9-2 and IEC 61850 GOOSE | Live date: TBC 2023
Monitoring storm damage to overhead power lines with Tata Power, India
Tata Power requested to trial Synaptec’s overhead line sensor technology for centralised sag and temperature monitoring of transmission circuits already instrumented with Synaptec protection-class current sensors. The instrumentation system comprises a fully passive sag and temperature sensor package attached directly on the lowest phase conductor along the Kurla-Dharavi line, specifically at the BKC transition tower ashore the Mithi River. This enables Tata to visualise, characterise, and locate any damage caused by increasingly frequent and violent storms, allowing dispatchers to respond more appropriately to transient faults and permanently damaged remote HV towers and conductors.
Equipment installed: DES Interrogator, Synthesis® and Overhead Line Sensor | Communication protocol: IEC 61850-9-2 | Live since: 2022
Overhead line monitoring on rail networks with Deutsche Bahn
Deutsche Bahn (DB) are a German railway company. As part of DB’s mindbox innovation program, Synaptec Distributed Electrical Sensing (DES) technology was deployed to locate and characterise impacts on overhead power lines. This includes alarms for dangerously low conductor cables posing high ‘tear down’ risk from passing trains, and cookie loss. DB installed sensors in two locations to capture and distinguish types and magnitude of impacts, as well as location and direction of travel. Synthesis® analytics were used to visualise data.
Equipment installed: DES Interrogator, Synthesis® and Photonic Strain Transducer | Communication protocol: IEC 61850-9-2 | Live since: 2020
Offshore wind
Retrofit array cable instrumentation with ORE Catapult, UK
Synaptec’s photonic current and temperature sensors were retrofitted on ORE Catapult’s grid-connected offshore wind demonstration platform in Levenmouth, Scotland. This successfully demonstrated Synaptec’s unique ability to retrofit monitoring systems quickly, stream real-time operational control data from remote locations to optimise availability, and reduce outage costs by earlier warning of most failure modes – many of which are overlooked by conventional monitoring.
Equipment installed: DES Interrogator, Photonic Current Transducer and Photonic Temperature Transducer | Communication protocol: IEC 61850-9-2 | Live since: 2019
Export cable condition monitoring with Vattenfall, UK
Synaptec was commissioned to retrofit the dual export cables of Vattenfall’s Aberdeen Bay offshore windfarm to provide synchronous and permanent harmonic monitoring and termination health monitoring. The ability to correlate electrical and mechanical information in one real-time system enables Vattenfall to identify far earlier the electrical stresses which accelerate cable insulation and termination failures by comparing harmonic content, phase current amplitudes, and termination temperatures over time.
Equipment installed: DES Interrogators, Synthesis®, Photonic Current Transducer and Photonic Temperature Transducer | Communication protocol: IEC 61850-9-2 | Live since: 2021
Dogger Bank offshore windfarm, UK
Dogger Bank is set to be the world’s largest offshore wind farm located more than 130 km off the northeast coast of England, featuring 112 individual 33 kV array cables connecting the largest wind turbine generators ever to be deployed at sea. Synaptec instrumented phases A and B of the windfarm, providing permanent and synchronous monitoring of each individual array cable and their terminations to provide early warning of thermal failure at over 600 locations. This complements the DTS system installed on all 16 strings by adding crucial monitoring of terminations (at which failures are twice as common). Data from both systems is combined into one dashboard view of the cable system as part of Proserv’s power ECG platform.
Equipment installed: Synaptec Interrogators, Synthesis® and Photonic Temperature Transducer | Platform: Synthesis Data Core and Proserv ECG™ | Live date: TBC 2023
