Advancing in digital substations Hitachi Energy unveils SAM600 3.0

The digital substation enhance safety, reliability, and productivity for grid operators while lowering overall substation costs.

Hitachi Energy is advancing its pioneering digital substation technology with the all-new SAM600 3.0, a process interface unit (PIU) designed to assist transmission utilities in accelerating the adoption of digital substations.

The new SAM600, a one-box modular device, consolidates three units into a single device. This enables it to be configured as a merging unit, a switchgear control unit, or a combination of both, supporting various installation approaches. With only one device to engineer, wire up, test, and commission, customers can enjoy improved device flexibility and maintainability while reducing the carbon footprint of their operations.

When utilised as a merging unit, SAM600 expedites the upgrade of conventional substations to digital substations. It bridges the gap by converting analog signals and digitally distributing current and voltage information throughout the substation and to the control center. The adoption of digital substations brings benefits such as enhanced safety, reduced capital costs, smaller footprints, and improved overall sustainability, reliability, and productivity for utilities and power system operators.

In its role as a switchgear control unit, the device directly interfaces with circuit breakers, disconnectors, and earthing switches in the field. This significantly reduces wiring to the control building by providing an IEC 61850 digital interface for operating and monitoring such equipment.

“As the complexity and dynamics of power generation, transmission, and distribution continue to grow, modern digital substations provide the control and efficiency needed to address these challenges. The new SAM600 helps operators extend the life of their existing assets, delivering much-needed investment protection and new levels of system performance,” said Claus Vetter, Head of Automation and Communication at Hitachi Energy.

Hitachi Energy is advancing the world’s energy system to be more sustainable, flexible, and secure. “The compact and advanced product design meets our customers’ need for a solution that functions reliably in harsh environments, and its modularity facilitates on-site service and repairs, which minimises downtime and related expenses,” said Vetter.

New features of the SAM600 3.0 include:
• State-of-the-art redundant communication architectures and the latest industry standards, including IEC 61850 Ed 2.1 and IEC 61869
• Two compact form factors for installation in indoor and outdoor panels
• Modular hardware architecture to adapt to different application needs
• Direct breaker tripping with trip coil supervision and a high-accuracy analog input system
• Supports IEC 61869 by default and legacy sampled value publishing profiles simultaneously
• Integrated disturbance recorder with 4.8 kHz recording frequency
• High level of security, including secure boot, user management, and role-based access control
• Browser-based user interface (WebUI) and device diagnostics
• Consistent configuration, operation, maintenance, and a shorter learning curve and time to deploy with the well-established PCM600 tool.

As digital substation technology continues to evolve, the SAM600 will play an important role in accelerating its adoption and enabling advanced automation and communication applications to help utilities tackle the challenges of future power grids. It also serves as the foundation for utilities to embrace greater digitalisation and integrate greater amounts of renewable energy for an energy system that is more sustainable, flexible and secure.