Design and implementation of real-time monitoring system for surge protection devices in smart grid

Abstract

The extensive use of sensors and communication devices in smart grid has greatly increased the quantity of surge protection devices (SPDs). Meanwhile, it puts forward higher requirements for the informatization level of monitoring and maintenance of SPDs. In order to realize the intelligent management of SPDs, the SPDs real-time monitoring system for the smart grid is developed. Specifically, the STM32 microcontroller is used in this system to collect the working state and environmental information of SPDs. In addition, occurrence time, number of lightning strikes and the peak value of lightning current can also be automatically measured and recorded. In particular, the maximum measurable lightning current of the system is 100 kA. What's more, the sampling rate of the system is 1MHz and the data storage capacity is 1MB. Besides, these data are uploaded through three communication methods include RS-232, 2.4G and GPRS. The system has realized the online running state tracking of SPDs and estimate of the deterioration situation and the precise location of the deterioration module. The results of this study laid a foundation for the SPDs lifetime assessment, highly efficient maintenance and differentiated lightning protection design.