CURRENT^® Smart Transformer Station

The CURRENT^® Smart Transformer Station (STS) consists of interoperable, open and flexible hardware and software components to provide a Smart Grid solution to utilities.  CURRENT's Smart Grid products are designed to solve major power distribution issues for utilities, the components of which are described in more detail below.

Communications

The communications component of the CURRENT STS provides for transformation station inter-connect and intra-connect.  Distribution substation inter-connect enables communication between substations by utilizing a mix of WAN solutions, including Ethernet, cellular wireless and broadband-over-powerline (BPL).  Utilities will be able to significantly reduce backhaul costs to distribution transformer stations while creating a high performance, low-latency, Internet Protocol (IP)-based managed communications backbone network.  Distribution substation intra-connect discovers and enables communication between devices within distribution substations using both Ethernet and serial interfaces.  The communications component of the CURRENT STS is enabled through the CURRENT Communications and Connectivity Engine (CCE).  The CURRENT CCE is a multi-slot chassis that enables functional customization with the addition of new modules that plug directly into the CCE chassis and provide either enhanced functionality (e.g., Station Data Concentrator (SDC) or a communications interface (e.g., BPL).  CURRENT's OpenGrid^TM Networking software provides complete Smart Grid communications management, including fault, configuration, accounting, performance and security (FCAPS).

Sensing & Analytics

The CURRENT Low and Medium Voltage Analytics devices (LVA/MVA) provide DSP-based secondary and primary sensing solutions that provide better than 1% measurement accuracy of full scale for the entire system.  All of the sensing solutions support IP-based communications and can be completely managed and upgraded remotely.  They also include the ability to perform complex edge analytics and threshold alarming on a wide variety of parameters.  CURRENT's OpenGrid Distribution software enables visualization and analysis of the sensor data, creating Actionable Intelligence^TM - specific guidance to improve grid operation and efficiency.  For example, the STS system will alert the utility when a transformer is overloaded thereby allowing the utility to take remedial action before the transformer fails; thus averting a customer outage.

Smart Metering

CURRENT Smart Metering enables a complete, standards-based Automated Metering Infrastructure (AMI) solution that enables both the efficient collection of metering data as well as providing for enhanced information exchange between the utility and the electric consumer.  The CURRENT SDC provides for last kilometer communications using the utility's existing low voltage cabling for power line carrier (PLC) communications, including PRIME, an open, future-proof, PLC technology.  The CURRENT SDC is available as a stand-alone appliance, optionally combined with the LVA or as a CCE module. OpenGrid Metering is a SDC vendor-independent, enterprise class AMI data collection, management and Smart Grid analysis solution.

Infrastructure & Data Management

The CURRENT OpenGrid platform provides the network and data management, analytics, simulation, and display capabilities to enable advanced Smart Grid applications.  It is built using a modern Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) specifications to provide a fast, reliable and secure enterprise application environment.  The modular and decoupled architecture allows flexible deployment schemes and is either available as separate modules for Networking (Element & Network Management Platform), Metering (Meter Reading & Collection) or Distribution (Distribution Management & System Optimization applications) or as an integrated platform.