Guest: Jean-Etienne Lemaire
Company: RTE (Twitter) | Organization: LF Energy (Twitter)
Show: State of Energy 

The majority of substations need to be configured manually which can take time for the engineers. CoMPAS (Configuration Modules for Power industry Automation Systems), the first project in LF Energy’s Digital Substation Automation Systems (DSAS) initiative, is working on developing a standardized framework to make it possible for this configuration to be done automatically, simplifying the process and saving engineers time.

In this episode of State of Energy, Jean-Etienne Lemaire, Substation Control Configuration Automation at RTE, talks about the CoMPAS project and how it is aiming, once live, to help engineers configure substations automatically. He talks about the scope of the project and gives us some insight into the roadmap for the project.

• Lemaire gives us an overview of the two main targets of the CoMPAS project: to provide a free and user-friendly tool that enables users to easily configure their own substation on one end. Secondly, to provide an automatic process so users can automatically configure a station.
• Lemaire explains that most substations are configured manually which is time consuming for the engineer. He talks about how the project aims to tackle this problem and takes us through the process the engineer needs to go through so that the configuration will be generated automatically.
• Substations are not identical; however, the CoMPAS project aims to provide a standardized framework to enable the configuration to be done automatically. Lemaire discusses how CoMPAS is making it easier for engineers to configure the substations regardless of whether they are identical or not.
• CoMPAS is not currently being used in production but Lemaire tells us it is expected to go live next year.
• The CoMPAS project is part of LF Energy and Lemaire shares the scope of the project, telling us there is more focus and designing of the UI and the manual process inside OpenC2. He talks about the functions that are being developed in the tool, such as the substation automation process.
• Lemaire discusses the areas they are working on including developing the automated process step-by-step and the testing involved to ensure it is working in all cases. He talks about the other key areas they are focusing on in their roadmap: developing the configuration of the gateway and topological substation settings.
• While the project is currently aimed at small substations, Lemaire explains that more work is needed to make it work on bigger substations since the data flow is more complex.

This summary was written by Emily Nicholls.