Cable and Wireless Adds Smart Grid Substation Automation Products and Solutions to Portfolio

Cable&Wireless Worldwide has enhanced its smart grid enabling portfolio with smart grid substation automation products and solutions, taking the next step towards helping utilities create an intelligent communications network that will aid in the development of the UK's smart grid.

Substation automation ensures uninterrupted electric power flow through several layers of switching, protection & control equipment and transformers in the electrical generation, transmission, and distribution system. By monitoring substation operating conditions and performance, substation automation ensures electricity supply will remain stable.

This is particularly relevant for a smart grid as it will need to accommodate renewable energy supplies and variable power sources. Substation automation adds robust data communications to electricity utilities' substation sites, enabling them to deliver smart grid solutions securely as they seek to revolutionise the electricity network and maintain security of supply for consumers and businesses.

C&W Worldwide is facilitating the development of the smart grid and is the first company in Europe to receive accreditation for Cisco's Substation Automation Authorized Technology Provider (ATP) Program. As such, it can deploy Cisco's high-quality, IP-based substation automation products and solutions to the electrical utility companies in the UK across its own secure next-generation network.

Paul Brodrick, Utilities Business Development Director at C&W Worldwide, comments: "A digital communications infrastructure is essential for establishing an intelligent smart grid, a key component in ensuring the nation achieves the goals set in the UK Government's Low Carbon Economy. With substation automation products and solutions running over C&W Worldwide's secure next-generation network we can create a reliable, secure and scalable communications network for the smart grid."

C&W Worldwide already has a strong heritage in the utility sector through the assimilation of Energis, THUS and Your Comms with roots from National Grid, ScottishPower and United Utilities, giving it in-depth understanding of the issues faced by electricity suppliers and distributors.

C&W Worldwide has more than 1,100 operational network sites in the UK, many of them co-located at substations and on the transmission companies' real-estate and in excess of 20,000 route kilometres of glass fibre, most of it wrapped around the earth wire of much of the UK's energy transmission networks.

Brodrick continues: "Substation automation is the next stage of C&W Worldwide's evolution into smarts. It is already a member of the Cisco Smart Grid Ecosystem, which aims to facilitate the adoption of Internet Protocol (IP)-based communications standards for smart grids. Through relationships such as this we can provide utilities with a compelling suite of smart grid enabling solutions and a secure next-generation network to connect it all."