ABB technologies to facilitate rural smart grid in Sweden

ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, has been entrusted to implement a rural smart grid project on the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea.

The project will serve as a model for upgrading other rural grids to minimize environmental impact by integrating a high proportion of intermittent wind power in the distribution network. It also aims to deploy new technological solutions to improve power quality

Within the implementation phase, ABB is building a 10 kilovolt (kV) smart substation in the village of Källunge, which uses state-of-the-art switchgear technology based on ABB's Unigear Digital concept. To process data from this substation and the rural grid, ABB is customizing and delivering an advanced distribution management system (ADMS) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system.

ABB is also installing switches equipped with safety and feedback functionality and equipping disconnectors with new remote surveillance and control capabilities. The ADMS will also locate and isolate fault zones from the rest of the grid and reroute electricity to minimize impact on consumers.

A further aim of the project is to give consumers the tools to actively participate on the energy market. To this end, an end-user software solution is already in place, supplying participating consumers with applications that enable them to adjust their energy consumption in response to wind forecasts and price fluctuations.

“We are pleased to contribute our innovative technologies to helping develop more flexible and sustainable energy systems and more intelligent and efficient electricity networks,” said Claudio Facchin, President of ABB’s Power Systems division.

Smart Grid Gotland is a joint-venture development project with Vattenfall, ABB, Gotlands Energi, Svenska Kraftnät, Schneider Electric, the Swedish Energy Agency, and the Royal Institute of Technology. It is one of several smart grid projects ABB is involved in around the world, examining various aspects of smart grids from e-mobility and energy storage to network management, metering and communication, distribution automation and building automation systems.