Country Energy was recently formed with the merger of three regional based energy companies and covers 72% of NSW. They manage over 307 zone substations and over 180,000 km of powerlines throughout western NSW.

Allen Bradley PLCs and Kingfisher RTUs are used to monitor and control equipment such as circuit breakers and transformers in the substations. The PLCs and RTUs are connected via a radio and microwave network to form the distributed SCADA system that Country Energy uses to manage their vast electrical network.

The topology of the SCADA system is shown in the following diagram and is based on a number of Intellution iFix SCADA Server and View Nodes at a number of locations around the State.

The main control locations are at the Bathurst and Dubbo control rooms, with additional SCADA Servers at Parkes, Orange and Mudgee. Operators at any node in the system can view the status of any of the monitored substations in the network.

The SCADA system has grown progressively over a number of years and has integrated a number of different systems as a result of the amalgamation of various regional country councils. CSE Technology implemented one of the first SCADA systems in the area for Central West County Council, which is now part of Country Energy.

In order to unify the existing systems and prepare for future expansion, Country Energy contracted CSE to undertake the work necessary to migrate the existing Fix32 based SCADA system to Intellution's iFix SCADA system. Country Energy's objectives in undertaking this project were:

• Modular system design to allow efficient expansion and maintenance of the system.
• Smooth transfer from Fix32 to iFix.
• Minimal disruption to the existing SCADA system during installation, testing and commissioning.
• Full test of monitored points and all commands to ensure system reliability.
• High performance and reliability of the system.
• Prompt rollout of the new system to each site following factory testing.

CSE's responsibility included:

• Preparation of a System Requirements Specification for the upgraded system.
• Preparation of a Design Specification
• System design to allow greater efficiencies in future additions though the use of common templates and screen objects.
• Ensuring the different areas of the system could be integrated within a common framework
• Development of the integrated system framework.
• Upgrade and migration of all existing systems to the new system.
• Factory testing, installation, on-site testing, commissioning and training.

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