A national electrical grid implements monitoring and control over new shared telecommunications network

Funded by a US federal government agency, major work was needed to restore the electrical infrastructure of a middle eastern country. The project was undertaken by one of the world’s premier engineering, construction and project management companies supported by specialist engineers from a systems integration and consultancy company.

A key task was to build a new multi-million dollar consolidated fibre optic network to allow the country’s rebuilt electrical grid to be remotely monitored and controlled. At the same time, the new network would also support secure inter-bank electronic transfers.

The project meant interfacing Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems to provide electricity supply monitoring and switching functions. SCADA technology uses reliable serial COM ports to monitor the status of connected equipment as well as interfacing with Remote Terminal Units (RTU’s) for switching control at 60 locations nationwide.

Within each electricity switching station, an Ethernet network was used to connect routers and network switches. This meant finding a way to provide a serial over Ethernet solution to the SCADA system for monitoring and controlling inputs on the RTU’s.

Perle worked closely with the systems integration and consultancy companies to ensure the serial to Ethernet solution met the customer’s precise requirements. Perle’s 8-port 1U Rack Terminal Servers provides the solution and the added benefit of integrating with advanced user authentication and encryption methods.

Over 200 Perle IOLAN Terminal Servers were installed in 60 locations, providing connectivity between networked 3Com switches, remote terminal units, and SCADA servers. This cutting edge solution from Perle now provides national electrical grid switching and monitoring systems through a fibre optic based wide area network.