Release Date : 2010-4-14

Efacec, the largest provider of energy, engineering, and transportation solutions in Portugal, selected Moxa to provide crucial IEC-61850-3 Ethernet switches as part of an effort to modernize a 400 kV high voltage substation in Africa. Efacec found that Moxa's PowerTrans PT-7728 series switches, which are specifically designed to operate reliably in electric utility substations, were ideal for the task.

 

Efacec's key selection criteria included reliable non-stop operations, strong EMI immunity, media fast redundancy, power redundancy, and a wide operating temperature range. Moxa's PowerTrans products feature TurboRingâ„¢ redundancy technology with 20 ms recovery time for up to 250-switch systems, and are IEC 61850-3 and IEEE1613 certified by KEMA, a respected independent laboratory for consulting, one-stop testing, and certification services in energy and utility markets.

 

Efacec deployed the PT-7728 Ethernet switches in the transmission substation automation system to connect with protection relays and other intelligent electronic devices (IED) to form a ring topology that is highly self-healing in the event of a network failure. Additionally, several PT-7728 Ethernet switches connect to the local SCADA monitoring server and redundant substation central units, so system operators can efficiently monitor operations at field sites.  PT-7728 switches come with four Gigabit ports to power high bandwidth networks and provide the capacity necessary for a redundant ring uplink backbone, with a spare port available for uplink to the core switches. The modular rackmount design with rear cabling simplifies installation and maintenance.