The monitoring and control of the smart grid are a variety of operational and energy measures including smart meters, smart appliances, renewable energy sources, and energy efficiency resources that are with the computer-controlled applications.

In response to the policy of energy transition in Taiwan, a great amount of renewable energy will be installed in the future. To reduce the impacts of the distribution energy resources, Taiwan Power Company (TPC) is improving its monitoring and control system at each control centers and is developing applications such as Green Energy Estimate Monitor System (GEMS) and Distribution Renewable Energy Advanced Management System (DREAMS) to solve the uncertainty of renewable energy and to maintain the power system quality.

Introduction of Monitoring and Control Structure

TPC aims to provide secure, reliable, and high-quality power through a three-tier Hierarchical Dispatching Control Structure as shown in the figure below that includes Central, Area, and Distribution Dispatch Control Center (CDCC/ADCC/DDCC). The three-tier centers a responsible for the generations and trunk networks (i.e., 345kV and 161kV tie line among ADCCs), the 161/69kV networks, and the 22.8/11.4kV distribution systems, respectively.

Optical fiber communication system

Taipower’s three-level dispatching and overall grid operation are based on a powerful optical fiber communication system, and we are continuing to improve it.

1. Taipower has introduced optical fiber cables and optical fiber communication systems since the 1980s. Up to now, it has completed the deployment of more than 10,000 kilometers of optical fiber cables, with a total of about 2,930 sets of optical fiber communication equipments, and the whole systems provide more than 10,000 circuits for all the power grid-related applications.

2. For the main force of Taipower’s existing communication system (the NG-SDH optical fiber communication system), the capacity utilization rate of the backbone network (10Gbps maximum) has reached 60％, and the capacity utilization rate of the regional network (2.5Gbps maximum) has reached 40％.

3. In 2019, Taipower had launched the「backbone/regional optical fiber communication capability enhancement」project. It is scheduled to increase the bandwidth of the backbone network by 10 times (to 100Gbps) in 2021, and increase the bandwidth of the regional network by 4 times (to 10Gbps) in 2023.

NG-SDH Optical Fiber Communication Systm Topology Diagram

(Taipei Area Partially)