All 789 substations of the company's five distributors are automated
Neoenergia invests in enhancing the safety and reliability of the power supply to its 15.9 million customers. All 789 substations are automated in the five concessionaires — Neoenergia Coelba (BA), Neoenergia Pernambuco (PE), Neoenergia Cosern (RN), Neoenergia Elektro (SP and MS) and Neoenergia Brasília (DF). In addition, the new assets are delivered digitized and more than 700 already rely on the technology.
In the first half of 2022, Neoenergia carried out construction, expansion and modernization of substations and distribution lines. All new substations are inaugurated with scanning automation systems. From January to June, the company invested about R$ 397 million in substations and lines.
With automation, the enterprises can be monitored and operated remotely by the Integrated Operations Centers (IOC) of the distributors, through the installation of devices with remote schemes.
Scanning allows even greater monitoring and control of asset operation. In these cases, the substation is entirely composed of microprocessors and digital sensors with the ability to collect and process data from all equipment, such as IEDs (in Portuguese, Intelligent Electronic Devices, which are multifunctional units), routers, firewalls, gateways and interface.
These technologies contribute to the operation of the distribution system being more robust and agile, enabling accurate and reliable decision making and increasing efficiency in service delivery. "Neoenergia fosters innovation and investments in substation automation systems grow substantially, with the aim of increasingly enhancing the quality of service for our consumers. Modernization is also part of the company's strategy, which prepares for the needs of the distribution system of the future, more digitized, decentralized and based on decarbonization", says Fabiano Uchoas, Ceo of Transmission of Neoenergia.
In addition to giving more efficiency to the operation, the scanning of substations benefits the maintenance of the system. Monitoring allows the company to have a more accurate diagnosis to know exactly where to act, including preventively, which can mitigate risks of interruption in power supply. The shutdown of customers is reduced or further avoided by the possibility that digital technologies have to carry out automatic re-establishments.