Doble Engineering Company and SynchroGrid Team Up to Provide Excellence in System Protection

Alliance brings power and utility companies a cutting-edge solution for driving relay setting development efficiency, ensuring data accuracy and achieving NERC PRC-027-1 compliance

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Doble Engineering Company

Aug 04, 2020, 09:15 ET

MARLBOROUGH, Mass., Aug. 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Doble Engineering Company, a leader in power grid diagnostic solutions and subsidiary of ESCO Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ESE), today announced its collaboration with SynchroGrid, an innovative power engineering consulting company specializing in system protection. The companies have created a joint solution for efficiently managing power system relay protection settings and ensuring compliance with NERC PRC-027-1.

SynchroGrid's SARA (Setting Automation Relay Assistant) and Doble PowerBase™ (PowerBase) are now connectable through an application programming interface (API), giving utilities an automated, end-to-end workflow for developing, reviewing and managing relay settings, as well as performing regular wide-area coordination studies. The system integration reduces time spent on settings calculations, eliminates errors from copying and pasting data points, and makes it easier for engineers to quickly identify and address non-compliant settings.

"Power and utility teams are already facing a busy and complex work environment, which can make staying on top of evolving compliance mandates challenging," said Joe Perez, president of SynchroGrid. "Our collaboration with Doble is intended to empower utilities with a streamlined, automated solution for ensuring adherence to NERC's new standard and similar regulatory requirements worldwide, while driving new process efficiencies for already busy staff."

SARA retrieves relay settings data directly from PowerBase and communicates with short-circuit models such as ASPEN OneLiner™ or PSS®CAPE to automatically calculate faults, flagging any settings that should be changed to meet compliance standards. Engineers can easily accept relay settings and store them in PowerBase, issuing the new settings out into the field, and creating user-friendly, comprehensive reports to demonstrate regulatory compliance.

"SynchroGrid shares our commitment to continually make utility teams' lives easier and help the industry ensure the reliable, safe and secure flow of power. Our combined expertise and technology will enable global power and utility teams to elevate their performance in every aspect of protection settings management," said Bryan Gwyn, senior director of solutions at Doble Engineering Company. "Whether teams need support with testing, settings calculations, or navigating compliance standards, our new solution is designed to be more than two technologies, but an end-to-end service to help clients excel."

The NERC PRC-027-1 standard will be enforceable for North American organizations in 2021.

While SynchroGrid and Doble have teamed up to provide integrated software solutions for NERC compliance, SynchroGrid also provides consulting solutions for PRC-027-1. SynchroGrid has helped numerous utilities develop an established workflow from relay setting development to wide-area coordination, which is what utilities urgently need.

The collaboration strengthens this consulting capability by bringing Doble's extensive protection testing, development, knowledge and experience to the team.

For more information on PowerBase and integration with SARA, please visit here.

About Doble Engineering Company
The team at Doble Engineering Company ensures reliable, safe and secure power for all. We do this by providing comprehensive diagnostics and engineering expertise for the energy industry.

Founded in 1920, Doble is committed to the continuing education of our customers, and the support and training of the next generation of power industry workers – uniting the utility sector for an innovative future.

Doble serves customers around the globe; our companies and product lines include ENOSERV, Manta Test Systems, Morgan Schaffer, Vanguard Instruments, and Xtensible Solutions.

Doble is part of the Utility Solutions Group of ESCO Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ESE). For more information, visit: www.doble.com, follow us on Twitter @doble and connect on LinkedIn.

About SynchroGrid
SynchroGrid specializes primarily in system protection, providing services to transmission, distribution, and generation utilities. These services include relay setting development, relay coordination studies, protection and control design, mis-operation analysis, standardization of drawings and settings, and NERC PRC compliance (PRC-001 through PRC-027-1).

Since its establishment in 2012, SynchroGrid has grown to be an industry leader in establishing innovative relay settings development processes that substantially minimize human error. SynchroGrid has applied these principles to utilities by implementing conventional and intelligent automated templates that eliminate error-prone processes. Using this specialized expertise, SynchroGrid empowers utilities to transform their internal operations.

For more information, visit www.synchrogrid.com, email us at [email protected], or connect with us on LinkedIn.

SOURCE Doble Engineering Company