APPLICATION OF ICT IN THE NIGERIAN NATIONAL GRID USING NEPLAN

APPLICATION OF ICT TO THE NIGERIAN NATIONAL GRID USING NEPLAN

BY

Emeka O. Okorie

mnse, mnieee, mieee, C.Eng.

Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Department of Electrical/Electronics Engineering,

P.M.B. 1036 Owerri, Imo State

Nigeria

okoriemeka@ieee.orgABSTRACT

NEPLAN is a very user friendly planning and information system simulation software for electrical power systems analysis such as Load Flow, Fault level calculations, Transient stability, Voltage stability, and Motor starting.

Electrical energy is supplied by the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (P.H.C.N.) to consumers from generating stations (which are interconnected to the National Grid) through transmission lines, to substations located at different areas around the country.

The challenge of the century is the ability of Power Systems/Control Engineers to access the power/load flow and ascertain the effects of short/open circuits on the entire National Grid at various points in the network at a glance. This paper has examined critically these problems on the Nigerian National Grid and has proposed options of overcoming them using the NEPLAN (which is ICT based) for the Eastern National Grid as a case study.Keywords: NEPLAN, National Grid and Information and Communication Technology (ICT).1.0. INTRODUCTION

The application of information and communication technologies to teaching, research and administration by the use of NEPLAN (a very user friendly planning and information system simulation software for electrical power systems analysis such as Load Flow, Fault level calculations, Transient stability, Voltage stability, and Motor starting) in Nigeria is yet another breakthrough in the application of ICT to meet the ever increasing technological challenges of the 21st century.

A typical NEPLAN (V5) environment has the following features in the User Interface, numbered as attached in the appendix (fig. 1.0):

1. Title bar-

This displays the tile of the present software and the present project file name.

2. Menu option bar-

This is the bar that contains all the menus with their commands that enables us to work comfortable with the NEPLAN environment.3. Toolbar-

All command buttons are equipped with balloon help texts, which pop up when the cursor is held still at the button for a moment without pressing any keys. Many commands, which can be accessed in the Toolbar, may be found as well in the respective menus. Others, mainly the graphical commands can only be accessed in the Toolbar .

4. Workspace with diagrams and data tables-

In the Workspace the different diagrams can be opened. The same diagrams may be used for entering the network, building control circuits or sketching drawings.

5. Variant Manager-The Variant Manager gives a good overview of the open projects and variants. New projects and variants may be managed, which means that they can be deleted, added, activated or deactivated. From the Variant Manager, the user can switch to the Diagram Manager, which administrates the open Diagrams with its graphic layers.

6. Symbol Window-This contains all the element symbols available. Apart from the standard symbol for some elements, there exist other symbols with a different graphical appearance but exactly the same characteristics. New symbols also can be created or existing symbols may be modified with the Symbol Library.7. Message Window-This is the channel used to communicate with the user. It supplies information about the executed processes, error messages and further information.

8. Status bar- Indicates the exact status of the simulation at any given time.

1.1. BENEFITS TO ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING STUDENTS / POWER SYSTEMS ENGINEERS / POWER UTILITIES:

NEPLAN simulation software enables the students/Engineers carry out (accurate) load flow analyses/solutions of a power system using Gauss Seidel, Newton Ralphson, Fast Decoupled, (etc) methods in a matter of minutes; The Nigerian national grid network can be seen at a glance; Effects of overloading/short circuit/faults in any part of the grid can be simulated, seen at a glance and remedied from the comfort of a computer system in a remote location; The effect of contributions of Independent Power Plants (IPPs) can immediately be ascertained long before their generated power is injected into the national grid; Excellent long term electrical power consumption forecast is achievable using NEPLAN; The need of adequate compensating equipment and their locations can easily be determined. Etc.

2.0 CHALLENGES FACED IN THE NATIONAL GRID WITHOUT NEPLAN

Till date, Power Holding Company of Nigeria manually traces faults on feeders of our national grid which has resulted (and is still resulting) to several days of outages to consumers. Thus, the challenge of the century is the ability of Power Systems/Control Engineers to access the power/load flow and ascertain the effects of short/open circuits on the entire National Grid at various points in the network at a glance and be able to specifically discover exact locations of faults in the shortest possible time. 3.0 NATIONAL GRID WITH NEPLAN

The application of information and communication technologies to teaching, research and administration by the use of NEPLAN in Nigeria can overcome the challenges currently being faced by our Engineers on our national grid. NEPLAN simulation software has been used for the design of the Eastern National Grid as a case study and can be seen as attached in fig.3.0 of the appendix. Running the load flow simulation of the eastern grid network gives the expected calculated parameters as shown in fig. 3.1. This pictorial view of the eastern grid network makes the lives of the servicing engineer and Power Systems/Control Engineers easy on the network.

4.0 CONCLUSION

The effective use of NEPLAN simulation software (which is an application of information and communication technologies to teaching, research and administration) for the design and analysis of our national grid will:

Allow our Engineers give excellent long term electrical power consumption forecast (as present system overloads are clearly and accurately indicated).

Ensure that overloaded lines and feeders are easily detected and corrected either by transferring loads to under loaded lines/feeders or creating a new line/feeder entirely. (The effect of these actions can be simulated first on a computer system before practical implementation)

Provide for adequate compensating equipment where necessary and their locations can easily be determined as in figs 3.0 and 3.1.

Ensure that a fault occurring in any part of the grid network will be localized/detected within the shortest possible time.

Allow the determination of the exact contributions of new generating/transmission stations and their effects on the national grid before they are actually constructed. Etc.

5.0 APPENDIX

Fig 1.0 Window features in the user interface

Fig 3.0 NEPLAN - EASTERN GRID NETWORK

Fig 3.1 NEPLAN - EASTERN GRID NETWORK WITH LOAD FLOW SIMULATION

(Colours indicate network condition. E.g. colour red indicates overloaded feeders/Lines.)

REFERENCE[1] Nwankwo O.I. (1998) Marginal Cost Pricing Alternative Pricing and Load Management Method. Paper presented at the annual conference of the National Electric Power Authority, Lagos.

[2] Okorie E. O. Okafor E.N.C. (2006) Wireless Power Transmission System- Permanent Solution to Electrical Power Theft Transmission And Distribution Problem. Inter-world Journal Of Science And Technology, 2(4), 100-111. [3] Gupta J.B. (2004). A Course In Power Systems. New Delhi: S.K. Kataria and Sons.

[4] http://www.neplan.chPAGE 1

Okorie Emeka O.