Protection & Control (P&C) has secured a contract from Nampower for protection, automation and control equipment for the utility’s new 132/33kV Orange substation in southern Namibia.
A worldwide relaxation in recent years of former longstanding tight relationships between OEM’s and system integrators on protection, automation and control equipment enabled P&C to secure the highly prized contract.
The business unit has had contracts from Nampower before for such equipment until about 10 years ago, when the utility adopted a new set of specifications for its protection, automation and control equipment, resulting in P&C not being able to provide a compliant solution from its international technology partners.
In the interim, however, practices in the market have changed to allow system integrators like P&C to offer and sell equipment available from OEM’s other than their own technology partners when their partners’ equipment does not meet the specs as required by the end-user.
This change enabled P&C to bid for the Orange substation contract, which Nampower awarded in September this year against stiff competition from other suppliers. The contract is for the design, manufacture, testing, supply and delivery of protection, automation and control equipment for the new substation, which is being built alongside the Orange River on the border with South Africa.
“This is an important breakthrough for us. It is a great opportunity for us to re-establish the longstanding good relationship we previously enjoyed with Nampower. We look forward to winning more contracts in future with this key customer,” commented Marius van Rensburg, P&C’s Tender Manager for Protection Schemes & Substation Automation.
The panels to be supplied include HV feeder panels, transformer protection schemes and a buszone scheme. “All of these schemes are IEC 61850 Ed 2 compliant and will be integrated into a remote terminal unit (RTU) panel for communication to the control centre, as well as having a built-in local human machine interface (HMI),” Marius explained.
The contract, scheduled for completion in mid-January 2021, incorporates supply of protection and automation intelligent electronic devices (IED’s) from US-based Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL).
“We have built up a lot of engineering knowledge and experience with 132kV substations and IEC 61850 based automation and control solutions. We are also familiar with SEL IED’s, having undertaken a number of contracts in recent years that incorporated this equipment,” Marius stated.
“Aside from the SEL IED’s, all the design, manufacturing, integration and testing involved in the contract will be handled in-house by our capable engineering team,” he added.
The balance of equipment to be manufactured and assembled includes panel housings, auxiliary relays, terminals and wiring.