Standardisation, globalisation and progressive investments: the power automation new challenges

The aim of this paper is to discuss key technical trends encountered in the area of power automation, i.e. substation automation within one or more substations, possibly integrating generators and loads. A first trend is standardisation in order to simplify the design and reduce the total cost of ownership. A second trend is to be more global therefore optimising decisions through better information sharing. This is based on the re-use of standard building blocks and offers unprecedented value creation opportunities. The third one is the migration from legacy situations to the new systems, suggesting answers to the when, what and how questions.