Hitachi and JR East introduce a full-digital substation system
East Japan Railway Company (JR East) and Hitachi, Ltd. (Hitachi) will jointly develop a full digital substation system in fiscal 2025.
Image for illustration purposes.
Japan, Tokyo: East Japan Railway Company (JR East) and Hitachi, Ltd. (Hitachi) will jointly develop a full digital substation system in fiscal 2025.
The system will enable dual configuration of transmission lines and of protection and control functions in the substation premises, enabling the stable transportation of railways through the stable supply of electricity. Furthermore, it will improve efficiency in construction by reducing the size of facilities. The two companies will continue to work together to achieve stable power supply and digitalization of substations.
The current protection and control system were configured to require one metal cable for each piece of information to be delivered in the substation premises, making it difficult to achieve duplexing. The full-digital substation system that will be introduced in the future will utilize fibre optic technologies to enable a single optical cable to transmit many pieces of information from network equipment to on-site units, and make duplexing easy. JR East and Hitachi jointly examined the system configuration and operation methods of the substation and conducted field tests. Hitachi has decided to introduce the system into the operating facilities as the company is ready to put it into practical use.
Some of the features of the full-digital substation systems are a stable supply of electricity through digitalization of substations (achieved by dual configuration of transmission lines and of protection and control functions in substations), saving space and improving efficiency of construction (done by consolidating and downsizing the monitoring control panel and the protective relay panel into an integrated unit which was developed by Hitachi) and the adoption of international standard IEC61850.
The system is scheduled to be installed at the Koiwa AC substation from fiscal 2025 onward. Hitachi plans to gradually install equipment from fiscal 2024, start using 22,000 volt equipment in fiscal 2025, remove old 22,000 volt equipment and install 66,000 volt equipment in fiscal 2026, and start using 66,000 volt equipment in fiscal 2027.
Source: Hitachi