SCADA for electrical distribution

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms has announced the availability of iPower 5.0 with its DNP3 driver providing a vertical industry solution for electrical transmission and distribution utilities. iPower reduces the cost of implementing, supporting and operating a SCADA system and increases operational efficiency by providing a secure, consistent and intuitive interface for operators.

iPower combines Proficy HMI/SCADA-iFIX with additional electrical transmission industry-specific functionality that is tightly integrated. It was built using the iFIX toolkit and includes built-in object security, enhanced graphic capability, standard operator interfaces, alarm and event reporting, and standard drag and drop electrical utility objects. The iPower option reduces customer development and maintenance costs while delivering an easier to use SCADA system and is intended to provide an open and flexible solution that is easier to deploy and support than generic SCADA software.

The addition of the DNP3 driver offers the ability to communicate with a wide variety of devices, RTUs and substations. The DNP3 driver is native to iFIX 5.0 and can also be operated independently as a standalone OPC server. The DNP3 driver’s key features include DNP level 3 (requests and responses), on-the-fly configuration without requiring a system restart and sequence of events (level 3).

Key features that iPower adds to iFIX include: electric SCADA sample system and electric SCADA object libraries to create the desired look and feel; device dialogs for intuitive, consistent and safe operation; industry-specific lists like ‘Disabled Alarms’ and ‘Off Normals’; industry standard safe and secure control; control tagging (locking) for safe operations; and events, sequence-of-events and event history for efficient network management and fault finding.