Substation Virtualization: Re-inventing Substation Protection, Automation, and Control

The power grid and its infrastructure are expected to undergo extensive modernization to ensure its resiliency in the face of massive installations of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). To better enable this fundamental change, industry stakeholders are working on the virtualization of protection, automation, and control functions inside the substation. Currently, the vPAC Alliance, an organization comprised of OEMs, software, and engineering providers are developing a specification for virtualized substations. Separately, the IEEE is preparing a roadmap to account for the impact substation virtualization will have on existing standards and the need for new IEEE standards. This panel includes industry experts who will provide updates and perspectives on related industry work from IEEE standards committees, vendors, and utilities.