Protection Applications
We engineer and design protection and control systems to help you navigate advancements in digital relays and integration systems, leading to development of robust, flexible and adaptable protection. Our staff includes engineers experienced in multiple types and applications of protective relays, philosophies and practices that promote safety, reliability and resiliency of your power system. The team can tailor solutions to address the many challenges faced in protecting today’s grid.
Why Protection Applications Are More Important Than Ever
Tighter grid operating margins, increased regulatory controls and expanding integration of inverter-based resources on the electric grid create new challenges to maintaining system safety, reliability and security. These ever-increasing challenges can often stress existing utility staff looking to maintain normal operations while addressing new initiatives, regulatory mandates and technologies to increase efficiency and improve operation.
Why Burns & McDonnell?
Beyond broad knowledge of protective relays, our team also has experience with various software used for system studies, along with the software applications and tools used in relay settings, including digital substations using the IEC 61850 protocol. The group has experience on transmission and distribution projects ranging from 4.6-kV to 500-kV throughout North America. Our team also has access to six dedicated labs to provide you with tailored technology testing so you know what to expect as you move from legacy applications to a new system.
Our protection engineers work alongside your engineering team to execute safe, sustainable and resilient solutions for your power system. Our services include:
- Protective relay settings. Applications include line and feeder protection (piloted and nonpiloted), transformer protection, bus protection, breaker control and protection, capacitor bank protection, reactor protection, and special protection schemes (SPS).
- Coordination studies. Scope includes protection data collection, short-circuit model development and validation, extensive fault studies, wide-area coordination reviews, and finding and resolving miscoordinations.
- Protection requirements. We create protection design write-ups based on your standards. We can also develop protection requirements and standards for those who haven’t established them, based on our deep knowledge of industry best practices, standards and requirements.
- Event analysis. We analyze event reports — including root cause failure analysis — to evaluate the performance of protective systems and provide recommendations for improved system reliability and security.
- Regulatory compliance. Our team includes professionals experienced with current and evolving rules, including those issued by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC). We can assist with electric utility cybersecurity compliance, governance and risk management initiatives.
- Arc-flash studies. Our experience includes analysis for all voltage classes for AC and DC systems. We verify equipment performance, address compliance with standards — OSHA, NFPA 70E and more — and offer training on arc-flash hazards.
- IEC 61850 implementation. We have guided power utilities in implementation of IEC 61850 programs, including developing core business and operational goals; building business justification cases; creating decision, preparation and deployment road maps; establishing functional requirements; conducting product evaluation and lab development; developing standards and templates; and delivering full project execution.
- Testing and commissioning support. Our in-house network integration and automation lab can be used to test protective relay logic, firmware upgrades and a range of communication network integrations. We can draft and oversee execution of checkout procedures to meet NERC and critical infrastructure protection (CIP) reliability requirements.
