MX2012010803A - MODULAR CONTROL SYSTEM AND REMOTE MONITORING OF THE POWER SUPPLY. - Google Patents

Abstract

The system object of this invention consists of a set of measurement or control modules that can act in addition to forming a control and data acquisition network to allow the companies that provide the electricity service to remotely monitor and control the operation from their offices. of the electricity supply networks, the energy consumption by each client and even receive information on the general state of the facilities and notify in case of vandalism or misuse of the infrastructure or attempts to steal energy. This particular system has the characteristic of being very versatile due to its modularity and intercom flexibility, which it achieves through communication interfaces designed for this purpose and which makes it very suitable for installation in countries and regions that sometimes do not have a good communications infrastructure or that due to the peculiarities of the region may present problems for the implementation of other equipment. The system is also extremely easy to install, the personnel in charge of the installation can be the same personnel that performed functions that will no longer be necessary, such as reading the meters at home or cutting off the service to delinquent users, The system has the possibility of being able to assign the identification codes for each user automatically and from the offices of the electricity company.

Description

MODULAR CONTROL SYSTEM AND REMOTE MONITORING OF ELECTRICAL POWER SUPPLY FIELD OF THE INVENTION The system object of this invention belongs to the field of metrology and control, more specifically to the measurement and control of the supply of electrical energy for residential, commercial and industrial use, since it consists of a series of equipment, systems and subsystems that allow Companies dedicated to the supply of electric power monitor and control remotely the consumption, the general condition of the transmission lines, the collection of the service and the eventual interruption of the service due to lack of payment.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION From the moment that Edison and Tesla installed the first electric power supply systems in the United States of America, it became necessary to establish how much each individual user of this service consumed as well as it became indispensable to monitor the state they keep at all times the transmission lines; local measurement units that were installed at each point of supply were designed to determine how much each user consumed, but this in turn determined the need to hire a large number of people who came to each of these points to take the reading of the meters and verify the conditions of the service, to later take this information to a central office that was responsible for evaluating how much the user should be charged for the amount of energy used and this was done based on a consumption rate which establishes the cost of the kilowatt -now or the power per unit time that constitutes the energy taken from the network at this point. Likewise, it was also necessary to suspend the service when the user did not pay for the energy consumed, this had to be done in such a way that the power transmission network remained integrated and only the user in question stopped receiving the supply, for this it was also necessary to send personnel from the electric power company to move to the address where the cut had to be made to do it manually. As the metrology teams and systems of communication have been evolving, various attempts have been made to make more efficient the monitoring and control of energy supply systems, however the designs that have been made in highly industrialized countries and endowed with an excellent communications infrastructure turn out to be very rigid and most of the time inadequate for its implementation in third world countries, which require equipment with a greater flexibility to adapt to the very particular social, technical, administrative, cultural and even union characteristics of the place. The systems object of this invention try to solve these problems based on a flexible, adaptable design and equipped with special security devices that ensure an adequate operation in any type of country and whatever the original infrastructure conditions and characteristics.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION This system of control and remote monitoring of the electric power supply bases its adaptability and flexibility in its modular nature since it is constituted by a series of subsystems that allow first the determination and control of the supply, to later make the information available in a local area, which makes it possible to read the consumptions within a limited perimeter, based on communication units that can use the same power lines to send the information in modulated and encoded form by means of medium frequency carriers, this information and the capabilities of control that are thus available at the local level, can then be transferred to a neighborhood environment by means of high frequency radial communication units, that allow concentrating the information concerning a neighborhood or an area of a few kilometers in diameter, in units that in turn can access communication networks of wide coverage such as the Internet network, so that the information packages local, regional and local are integrated into one or several networks of national or state coverage, which will allow from one or more operation centers to determine the particular consumption at each service point with the ability to interrupt or connect the service in any At the moment and to analyze the particular and specific conditions of the service provided to each user, it is this modular and adaptive nature of this system that makes it easier and more convenient to implement them in the different regions of a country, for example, possible to automate the network in terms of monitoring and control gradually, so the staff that at one time was engaged in taking the measurements or to perform the maneuvers of cutting or reinstallation of the service can be gradually assigned to other functions with a minimum of training, avoiding union or administrative problems; thus also this modular nature of the equipment allows the system to integrate communities that do not have minimum infrastructure such as internet or fixed telephony, which is especially versatile. Basically the essential feature of this system is that unlike equipment specifically designed for use in highly industrialized countries endowed with a broad communications infrastructure, this modular system of control and remote monitoring of the power supply, uses modules that can intercommunicate between using the available means or adapting to them as necessary or convenient.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION This modular system of control and remote monitoring of the electric power supply, is formed by a set of measurement and information processing devices, linked together by various networks or communication subsystems and bases its operation on its modular nature, that is, each one of the elements that constitute it can make use of diverse means of communication according to the necessities, possibilities and requirements of the places in which it is desired to implement a network of control and remote monitoring like this, by means of the use of an interface intelligent that allows the possibility that a basic electronic control card can be connected to two bidirectional intercommunication modules in such a way that through the action of this interface, the central control unit can receive the same information through the same input ports even though use in a network of high frequency radio, internet, telephony fi ja, etc ... since the same interface will take care of providing the necessary power supply to the power module and to direct the outputs of said module to the required places.

If any electricity company that has been working on the monitoring, supervision and administration of their electric power distribution networks in a traditional way wants to make their business more efficient by modernizing their operating methods, they can implement the modular control and monitoring system Remote power supply, easily anywhere regardless of your communications infrastructure due to the adaptability of the elements that compose it. Figure 1 shows a block diagram that exemplifies the operation and connectivity of the modular system of control and remote monitoring of the electric power supply, where the power plant (1), administered by the electricity company (2), has an electric power network (13) that through the distribution infrastructure (14) can serve a wide region that can range from a colony, an industrial zone, a state or province, to an entire country; In order to manage both the quality of the service provided to users and the commercial aspect of charging for the amount of energy consumed by each of them, the electricity company (2), can install the modular system of control and remote monitoring of the electric power supply that operates as follows; users can be grouped by blocks like the housing group that houses (7), (8) and (9), which are supplied with electrical power through the concentrator and switching control module (5), which has the ability to connect or interrupt the supply of the power grid electrical (13) to the group of houses (7), (8), (9), likewise this concentrator and switching control module (5) has two communication interfaces, the primary communication interface (15) and the secondary communication interface (16), the communication interface secondary (16), allows the use of a bidirectional local network of short-range communication, which makes it possible to read the energy consumption of each user; thus for example the reading of the house (9) can be taken by the meter (17) and this information in turn is transmitted to the concentrator and switching control module (5), likewise, the modular control system and Remote monitoring of the electric power supply can make use of a smaller communication network to send the information from the meters to a local monitor (10) that allows reading the information in each house, of its energy consumption; This in particular is a requirement that by law is required of the service provider in some countries, such as Mexico.

The concentrator and switching control module (5) can use its communication interface (15) to connect to a much larger communication network, such as the internet network (4), in such a way that its mediation forms a bidirectional link, between the electricity company (2) through its computer network (3) and the users of the houses (7), (8), (9), this will allow that from the offices of the electricity company (2), you can read the consumption of each user, apply the corresponding fees, suspend the service to a particular user when necessary and even detect failures or violations of the integrity of the equipment; Something very important is that even if all the equipment is manufactured in a generic way, once installed, an identification code can be assigned to each element so that there is no possibility of erroneously reading the consumption of a certain user confused with another, the assignment of these identification codes remotely is very important, because otherwise, it would be necessary for the installers of the meters in the user's location, to do the programming of the identification code and this would require a more specialized training on the part of the user. the installers. In the same figure 1 it can be seen that the system can be incorporated any number of concentrator modules and switching control such as (5) and (6) and can be incorporated to these any type of user such as shops ( 11), factories (12) etc.

Figure number 2 shows the installation of the modular system of control and remote monitoring of the electric power supply, in a community where you can see a concentrator and switching control module (5) that in this case is protected by a protection cabinet that protects it from the elements and vandalism. In this figure 2 you can also see a local monitor (10) that allows users to know what their energy consumption and other relative data has been from anywhere in their home or business. Both the concentrator and switching control module (5) and the monitor (10) can be adapted to the use of various intercommunication methods through their communication interfaces.

Figure 3 shows an internal block diagram corresponding to the general architecture of the modules that make up the system, such as the concentrator and switching control module (5), (6), the local monitor (10) and the satellite meter (17), in this case figure 3 specifically shows the internal architecture of the circuits of the concentrator and switching control module (5), which has an intelligent primary communication interface (15) and a secondary intelligent communication interface (16), both interfaces, have a bidirectional data connection line (21) and (22) respectively, which allow the concentrator and switching control module (5) to exchange information with both intelligent interfaces (15) and (16) ), Each of these has the ability to adapt its inputs and outputs automatically by recognizing a certain means of communication, for example, if a medium-range radio unit is installed e of 900 Mhz. to the access connector of the primary communication intelligent interface (15), this will address the outputs and inputs of the communication circuit so that it can interact with the concentrator and switching control module (5), if in another application it is necessary to use a fiber optic intercommunication system, the intelligent primary communication interface (15), will adapt the outputs, inputs and voltage levels to allow the required communication. The use of two interfaces is necessary, because in most cases, the information arrives in one medium and the data is transmitted in a different way. The internal control line (18) communicates the intelligent primary communication interface (15) and the primary communication interface (16) with the concentrator and switching control module (5) with respect to instructions and synchronization signals , while the power line (19), provides electrical power to the concentrator and switching control module (5), to the secondary intelligent communication interface (16) and to the intelligent primary communication interface (15).

The primary access line (20) and the secondary access line (23) are the lines that carry the information to and from the selected communication equipment.

Figure 4 shows the possibilities of intercommunication within the general scheme of the modular system of control and remote monitoring of the power supply, where the power plant (1), provides the module concentrator and switching control (5) through the electric power network (13), the electric line that must be controlled to provide service to a user who has installed a satellite meter (17) and a local monitor (10), the module concentrator and switching control (5) can deliver electrical energy to this user through the controlled supply of electric power (24) and this supply can be interrupted by the concentrator module and switching control (5), by means of an order remote communication from the electricity company (2), the intercommunication between the latter and the switching and concentrator control module (5), can be carried out by means of a line of communication via the internet (25) or a line of communication by fixed telephony ( 26) or a satellite communication system (27), likewise the intercommunication between the concentrator module and the switching control (5) and the satellite meter (17), can be ede performed by a long-range radio communication system (28) or a fiber optic communication system (29) or a communication system through the "PLC" power supply line (30). Finally, communication with the local monitor (10) can be done through a link through the low-level power supply line (31) or through a short-range radio communication system (32) or communication direct cable dedicated (33), in the latter case the information reaches the local monitor (10), directly by a cable. All this great versatility of intercommunication is possible due to the modular structure of the modular system of control and remote monitoring of the electric power supply and by the action of the intelligent communication interfaces.

DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES Figure 1 shows a general diagram of the system in which you can see the basic elements that compose it, their interaction and mutual connectivity.

Figure 2 shows a typical application scenario and it shows the physical shape of the monitors and the concentrator and switching control in its protective cabinet.

Figure 3 shows a functional block diagram that exemplifies the internal composition of the modules that make up the system.

Figure 4 shows the possibilities of interconnectivity between the elements that come into play for the integration of the modular system of control and remote monitoring of the electricity supply.

Claims (2)

CLAIMS Having sufficiently described our invention, we consider it a novelty and therefore claim as our exclusive property contained in the following clauses:

1. A modular system of control and remote monitoring of the electric power supply characterized by being formed by a set of measurement and control devices that operate independently but that in turn can interrelate among themselves through the use of various bidirectional communication systems, that can be incorporated into each operating module through an intelligent interface that can automatically adapt the output and input characteristics of any communication equipment to the output and input requirements of each module for its correct operation and to obtain the most efficient mode of exchange of information according to the infrastructure characteristics of each place in which each segment of the system is installed and also characterized by the capacity that this interconnectivity gives it to be able to monitor, control and supervise an electricity supply network in which the electric company d has a set of computers from which you can obtain information on the energy consumption of each client, the general state of the supply network, as well as detect any act of vandalism or inappropriate alteration of the power supply network.

2. A modular system of control and remote monitoring of the electric power supply as described in claim 1 and which is also characterized because each measuring or control module that integrates it has two intelligent communication interfaces that allow them to adapt to the use of various Communication methods according to whether these are the most appropriate or available for use in the place where the equipment is installed, depending on the communication infrastructure and characteristics of the local legislation. A modular system of control and remote monitoring of the electric power supply as described in claim 1 and claim 2 and characterized in that the communication interfaces can work automatically or manually in their function to adjust the levels of voltage, the bidirectional action protocols and the input and output ports so that each module can communicate adequately with the other elements that make up the modular system of control and remote monitoring of the electricity supply. A modular system of control and remote monitoring of the electric power supply as described in claim 1 and characterized by the elements that constitute it, even if they are manufactured in a generic way, can be programmed remotely, assigning their own identification codes that allow that the information related to a particular user, does not interfere with the information of the other users, without the need to assign the identification codes during the installation of the equipment.