A practical implementation of modern Distributed
Control Systems in Electric Power Substations
Dănuț Adrian Poștovei
Faculty of Power Engineering
University Politehnica of Bucharest
Bucharest, Romania
postovei@yahoo.com
Ion Triștiu
Faculty of Power Engineering
University Politehnica of Bucharest
Bucharest, Romania
ion_tristiu@yahoo.com
Abstract—This paper presents a practical implementation
of a modern DCS in energy sector, applicable for electric
power transmission and distributions substations.
When dealing with aging infrastructure the reward from
investing in modern automation solution can be substantial,
with benefits such increasing productivity, cost savings, safety
operations, scalable solution and a better integration in the
modern IT facilities.
The modern DCS systems evolved into a flexible and
scalable automation solutions, which make them mandatory in
the actual competitive energy business environment.
Comparing to PLCs and traditional DCS, the modern DCS
systems are designed to provide automation solution in a safe,
reliable and cost-effectively manner.
The main goal of this article is to present and suggest an
optimal DCS design and functional solutions taking into
consideration customer requirements, international and
customer applicable norms, budget constraint, hardware and
software limitations, integration of existing equipment,
cybersecurity and low impact of the monitored and controlled
process for extension and future growth.
The principles presented in this paper can be found
implemented in Romania mainly in the electric power
transmission substations, owned by Romanian Transmission
and System Operator CNTEE Transelectrica SA.
Keywords—DCS, SCADA, HMI, RTU, BCU, protection
relays, IEC61850, Cyber Security, power transmission,
substation, network redundancy.
I. INTRODUCTION
The innovations of Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) applied for DCS and SCADA systems
overcome the geographical barriers and made the remote
monitoring and control an easy task [1].
A Distributed Control System (DCS) main purpose
represents an uninterrupted the monitoring and control of the
field devices. A successful DCS implementation depends on
having a detailed, complete, and accurate picture of the
process facility to provide all technical means for accurate
monitoring and process control, reliable protection system
and optimal dataflow to the Control Center.
In a practical DCS implementation, especially when
existing automation systems or devices are mandatory to
remain in operation being integrated in the new system, the
design becomes the most important part of the project which
can make or break it. Based on authors’ previous field
experience, all the gaps remained after the design stages of
the project, will certainly emerge in the implementation
phase, at higher cost and longer implementation time.
978-1-7281-6843-2/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE
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Constantin Bulac
Faculty of Power Engineering
University Politehnica of Bucharest
Bucharest, Romania
cbulac@yahoo.com
Balduino Camachi
Faculty of Automatic Control and Computer Science
University Politehnica of Bucharest
Bucharest, Romania
estison@hotmail.com
In many cases, the implementation of a DCS system
faces the challenges of integration of other subsystems and
electronic devices designed to perform a very specific task in
the monitored and controlled process. The big challenges
come from the limitations or restriction imposed by the
different manufacturer proprietary communication protocols,
costly solution to upgrade the older devices to the actual
available technology or customer’s budget restrictions.
Nowadays, a lot of electric power transmission and
distribution substations are managed by DCS systems,
implemented intensively especially over the past 15 years.
Unfortunately, since the DCS systems were not implemented
simultaneously, the utilities operators are facing the issues of
operating with different technologies, many of them being
already obsolete and need upgrade even if their life cycle is
not over. In addition to that, implementation of different
technology over the time from various supplier make the
utility operators depended of the suppliers’ know-how.
At this point in time, technology has evolved rapidly and
a DCS upgrade is more costly than the replacement by a new
one. In order to reduce or avoid the design integration risk,
the DCS manufacturers prefer to supply a complete new
DCS, including in one package both the field control level
and plant supervisory equipment.
A practical example is represented by a recent upgrade of
three electric power transmission substations, respectively
Raureni 220/110 kV, Arefu 220/110/20 kV and Hasdat
220/110, owned by Transelectrica SA.
Going back in 2018, the initial supplier was Areva T&D
France. In 2018 the owner decided to upgrade all the above-
mentioned substations, but this time the contract was
awarded to Siemens AG Germany. In this context, Siemens
decided to replace the entire DCS system instead of
upgrading the existing AREVA ones, thus reducing the
design integration risk, avoid the very high engineering cost
and prevent further delays in project implementation. Even if
the driven factor for Siemens of getting this project was the
delivery of their own products, in the short term could be a
saving cost to keep the existing DCS and just upgrade it, but
for the entire project life cycle the previous experiences
shown the opposite.
A modern DCS is deployed with the capabilities of easy
integration with other automation systems, scalability and
flexibility for future extensions, cybersecurity attack
protection, and high availability through the redundant and
modular architectures which make it a very reliable and
completely free from the failure of any single component.
Moreover, a modern DCS has the capability to process
thousands of inputs/outputs from a very large number of
 controllers distributed through the plant but monitored and
operated centralized from a central Human Machine
Interface. All those characteristics are DCS core components
and bring it as a cost-efficient automation solution, proposing
a friendly and efficient operating environment and keeping
the operations personnel clearly informed and easy to control
the process.
The use of common automation technologies enables
seamless integration of the modern DCS with plant-floor and
business systems, creating more opportunity for plant-wide
optimization [2]. Furthermore, using common technologies
lowers the lifecycle cost of a modern DCS implementation.
For a modern DCS to be highly reliable and economical
in terms of engineering, implementation and maintenance
costs, the major requirement in the design phase is to use the
newest common automation technologies available by all the
suppliers, for an easy integration between automation
systems, compatibility with modern IT facilities and a better
interface with business and plant management staff.
As the competition in the automation field in growing
more intense, the modern DCS systems must be designed to
perform high with less energy resources in order to keep up
with the increasing cost pressures.
II. DCS SYSTEMS SURVEY
A. The Distributed Control System definition
A distributed control system (DCS) means a monitoring
and control system for an industrial process, in which the
monitoring and control elements are distributed throughout
the plant [3]. Although the hardware part of the DCS, due to
specific characteristics of each controller, is perceived as a
multitude of autonomous entities, the software platform that
manages them makes the whole process to be perceived as a
single and coherent system.
Practically, the DCS software platform is designed to
centralize all the network elements that are distributed
throughout the entire plant, allowing central control,
monitoring and reporting of each individual component and
process. The above-mentioned characteristics along with
redundancy capability make the DCS a high availability and
reliability system, able to control complex facilities and
technological processes such thermal, nuclear, hydro, oil
refinery and electric power substations as well.
A Distributed Control System (DCS) with a typical
architecture presented in Figure 1, consist mainly in three
basic components, respectively Supervisory Computers to
collect and centralized the process data and provide the
HMI, field controllers with the associated field sensors and
control elements and a Communications Network.
Fig. 1. Distributed Control System architecture (adapted from [2])
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The modern DCS concept improves system reliability
and decreases installation costs by placing the control
functions near the field process but keeping centralized
remote monitoring and supervision features. Taking into
consideration the other characteristics such flexibility and
scalability, the modern DCS can handle various automation
processes from a small to a very large one. In the case of
substation retrofitting an optimal solution is represented by
an implementation of a multi-level DCS architecture.
B. DCS hardware components
1) System server
The system server is usually an industrial computer, on
which the operating system is installed and running the DCS
software application and represents the main component of
the system. Usually, distributed control systems related to
energy production, transport and distribution, are designed in
a redundant network architecture, which involves the use of
two system servers, one running online and the other in hot-
standby.
Through the software platform running on this computer,
the main system servers’ features are acquisition, supervision
and control functions.
The main operational functions of the system server are:
- Data acquisition from the field controllers and IEDs,
processing it, decision making and exchange this data with
all the system IEDs;
- Retries failed equipment and switch the data acquisition
to the backup IED in case of exceeding retries but continues
monitoring the failed equipment and communication links in
an attempt to put the failed device back into operation;
-Control and supervision of the process, based on screens
with graphic animation, dialogs and command boxes;
- Managing all the DCS records (Data Historian);
- Alarms and events management;
- System user rights management;
- Print the alarm and event lists;
- Data exchange with all IEDs in the network.
2) Gateway / Substation communication server
The Gateway or substation communications server is an
industrial computer or in some cases an RTU without
acquisition I/O boards, running a software application
identical to the system server or just a software module from
that application. The main role of it is to get all the necessary
data from the devices connected to the network and
transmitted to the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data
Acquisition) systems, respectively to National Control
Center (NCC). It has the capability to setup a firewall with
SCADA front end to provide a secure connection for data
transmission and reception, according to Cybersecurity
requirements.
The data transfer from the communication server to NCC
is bidirectional and, in many situations involves protocol
conversion. The most common protocol conversions
performed by the communications server are: IEC 61850 to
IEC 870-5-101, IEC 61850 to IEC 60870-5-104, IEC 60870-
5-104 to IEC 60870-5-101, Modbus- IEC 60870-5-101, and
Modbus- IEC 60870-5-104.
3) HMI-Human Machine Interface
The HMI (Human Machine Interface) represents a
combination of hardware and software consisting of one or
more industrial computers running Windows or Linux
operating systems and HMI software application. There are
DCS systems with Web interface features, where the HMI
 application interface is simply called using a common web
browser, such as Internet Explorer or Google Chrome.
Apart from the process control, there are human
interfaces which are not designed for substation operators
like Engineering Workstations (EWS), having the role of
software database configuration like adding new signals in
the alarm and event, and updating the BCU and protection
relays setting files. On demand, could be supplied an
additional computer connected to the network, with the
scope of extracting various reports for remote monitoring
or/and limited control of the substation.
4) IED-Intelligent Electronic Device
The generation, transmission and distribution of power
needs 24/7 monitoring and control to maintain the grid
reliable and uninterrupted power supply. In this respect, the
flexibility in integration and interoperability of IEDs over
RTUs lead to a migration from the classic RTUs to IEDs in
all new DCS implementations.
IEDs (Intelligent Electronic Device) are microprocessor-
based equipment with continuous self-supervision, used in
the electric power system for monitoring, controlling and
protection functions. There are many types of IEDs used in
a substation network, such as BCU (Bay Control Units) to
monitor and control of disconnectors and circuit breakers,
protection relays to detect faults, switch off and isolate
selectively the protected equipment from the power grid,
AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulator), metering units (MU),
power transformer monitoring (Qualitrol), ATS (Automatic
Switch Transfer), etc.
In a distributed architecture these devices are located
close to the controlled field equipment and sensors, with the
main purpose of reducing the length of the copper cables
and communication serial links. IEDs can manage both
analog and digital inputs / outputs via analog and digital I/O
boards. The number of inputs/outputs or AC/DC analog
cards in a controller are scalable, obviously with respect to
the maximum allowed values and conditioned by the
physical or thermal capacity of the controller. All
information collected from the field elements are
transmitted to the central system server or exchanged with
other IEDs in the network. IEDs have a bidirectional
dataflow, meaning that they are able to send data and
receive controls from HMI interface, through the central
system server.
5) Time server-Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
Presently, the synchronization for all network devices are
realized through a GPS clock. As the time stamp is a very
important issue, the new DCS systems managing this aspect
with two GPS to avoid any single failure. The GPS system
does not exchange any data with satellites, but just receiving
signals with information about the time. The most common
GPS server used in substations is Meinberg Lantime M300,
with an accuracy of around 50 nanoseconds [4].
6) Peripheral devices
Even for a small DCS implementation, a minimum one,
and in some cases two printers are required, to print the
alarms and SoE (Sequence of events) list and on demand to
get HMI screen shots or specific reports. External storage
devices such HDD and CD/DVD are also used to archive
the events logs or on demand reports.
C. DCS software components
All companies that supply distributed control systems
usually use a single software platform for HMI design,
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database configuration, programming, validation, testing
and commissioning, thus providing a common interface for
all engineering activities.
In Romanian electric power transmission and
distribution sectors, the main DCS systems are known by
the name of the associated software platforms, namely
Siemens SIMATIC PCS7, ABB Micro SCADA, Areva
PACIS, Efacec CLP500, General Electric DS Agile.
The key elements of using a unique DCS software
platform are:
- Centralized database for recording all process
information (Data Historian);
- A single software interface for all hardware products,
configuration of IEDs, like mimics and protection relays
settings, configuration of the HMI operator interface and
parametrization for the interface with other DSC/SCADA
systems.
- Easy interface for SCADA / HMI configuration and
programming;
- Programming environment IEC 61131-3;
- Advanced 2D editor;
- Realization of a unified project for the entire controlled
installation;
- Simulation environment;
- Utilities for online testing of configurations;
- Analysis of data records;
- User defined libraries and templates.
The main advantages of using a unique platform are:
- High productivity;
- Reduced learning curve;
- Avoidance and detection of errors during project
configuration;
- Optimization of the execution time of the software
programming part of the project;
-A single software environment for all engineering
activities.
III. METHODS AND IMPLEMENTATION
A. General Requrements
To illustrate a practical implementation of a modern DCS
system, this paper analyzes an example of installing a new
DCS system for Alba 220/110/20 kV substation. Practically,
a new DCS was installed for the 220/110 kV voltage level
(later referred as HV-DCS), and the existing 20kV
substation inherited an older DCS (later referred as MV-
DCS). According to the scope of supply, the existing MV-
DCS had to be integrated in the new HV-DCS, taking into
consideration a critical customer requirement, respectively
to keep both systems working in parallel, with HV-DCS
able to monitor and control the entire existing MV-DCS and
in reverse, the MV-DCS to be upgraded at a minimum cost
to get the capability of monitoring and control a specific part
of the HV-DCS, respectively the two 110 kV transformer
bays.
B. Implemented DCS Architecture
Depending on factors like customer requirements and
normative, the substation communication infrastructure,
budget and integration of the existing or new third party
equipment, there are several architectures for the
implementation of a DCS which each supplier should take
into consideration in the tendering and later in the design
and implementation phases.
 In the presented study case, there are three voltage levels,
respectively 220kV, 110kV and 20kV, where the final DCS
architecture should respect the high availability, scalability
and reliability requirements. Those aspects can only be
achieved through a flexible architecture and redundant
communication network to prevent failures in the and to be
able to remove or reinsert the network devices without
disrupting the functionality of the system.
Taking into consideration the complexity of the
implementation for the analyzed study case and the network
devices features, a mixed solution with three network
redundancy protocols was chosen, as presented in Figure 2,
and detailed here below:
1. Dual Homing (Dual Link) is a network redundancy
protocol with recovery time established since 2004, having
two active links, one is sending and the other one is in hot
stand-by, sending link changes if one link is down. The
switch over time is <5 milliseconds. This type of redundancy
is applicable for all industrial computers, such System
servers, Gateways, EWS, HMI and RTU in case of 20kV
network.
In practice, this type of network it is easy to handle, there
are no setting required but some field experience is needed.
This solution also comes with some limitations such
supervision of only directly linked connections and broken
connections in the upper or lower network will be not
detected by the device.
2. RSTP (Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol), it is also a
network redundancy protocol with recovery time, and as it is
defined by IEEE 802.1D-2004 standard is used to prevent the
problem of loops in the communications network by forming
a logical tree network that includes all the switches in the
network, ensuring that certain network connections are put in
a standby state, so that there is no traffic data through that
connection, thus breaking any physical loop in the network.
This is applicable for high HV-DCS network, where all the
switches are interconnected.
RSTP is a networking solution for computers or devices
which do not support parallel redundant protocol. Even if is a
budget saving network, it is reliable and support up to
250.000 units in a ring configuration. It is used mainly in the
networks where the recovery time is not critical, being in the
range from 1 to 2 seconds [5].
3. PRP (Parallel Redundancy Protocol) is a seamless
network redundancy protocol, and as it is defined by IEC
62439-3.4 standard consist of two active links, both sending
and parallel configuration. PRP networks provide the highest
level of redundancy, with the limit of around 2000 devices,
and no there are not special settings for network switches as
in RSTP case.
Devices with only one Ethernet interface (printers,
laptops, GPS) can be connected just to one of the PRP
LAN(Local Area Network). In PRP architecture the switches
must handle Jumbo-Ethernet frames and the linkage of the
two networks could leads to breakdown of the
communication.
PRP is applicable for all the IEDs connected in both
Ethernet networks in shown in Figure 2.
C. Communiction protocols
1) IEC 61850 Protocol
Since its first release in 2003, IEC61850 was widely
adopted by all the DCS manufacturers and nowadays all the
architectures rely on this standard. It is a protocol based on
Ethernet networking and designed to perform protection
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functions, monitoring, control and metering functions. The
IEC61850 standard provides four types of communication
services that allow data exchange between devices
connected to the same network, such as:
- Client – Server based on TCP/IP MMS (Manufacturing
Messaging Specification), connection oriented protocol.
DCS/SCADA systems use MMS Client/Server
communication to perform the monitoring and control
functions. Applications from DCS system servers to IEDs,
like protection relay or BCU using the Client/Server services
are not time critical. The acceptable latency of Client/Server
communication is in the range of 100-200ms, with the
maximum delivery time of 800 ms and a maximum recovery
time of 400 ms. TCP/IP mechanisms also care for repeating
lost frames and the right ordering in the receive buffers.
- GOOSE (Generic Object Oriented Substation Event)
protocol, directly on Layer 2, multicast, repetition
mechanism, for the fast transmission of data over the
network. Even if the GOOSE messages have no destination
address, by design they are restricted to stay within a LAN
and do pass not pass through routers to other LAN [6].
Applications between IEDs like interlocking signals and
trip messages use the GOOSE service based on a
connectionless one to many – the multicast service. Goose
service has a maximum delivery time of 8 ms and a
maximum recovery time of 4 milliseconds. IEC 61850
standard distinguishes between two types of reporting:
buffered reporting and unbuffered reports. in the first case
the reports are buffered by the server in case a connection to
the client is interrupted and in the second case the Server just
"throws" the report to the communications network without
knowing if the message get to the required Clients, and if the
communication is down the message will be lost [7].
- Sampled Values (SV) protocol, directly on Layer 2,
multicast, data stream, for the fast transmission of analogue
values over the network. SV has a maximum delivery time of
2 ms and a zero recovery time (bump less redundancy).
- Basic services like NTP, SNMP, HTML are not time
critical. Those services have a maximum delivery time of
500 ms and a maximum recovery time of 300 ms.
The GOOSE and SV protocols are used for critical high-
speed functions such as station interlocking, protection
tripping and blocking schemes and other station-related
protection devices and control functions [8].Protection
devices are required to safeguard the expensive power
equipment and transmission lines against overloads and
damages [9].
In the analyzed study case presented in Figure 2, the
common language between IEDs, system servers and
Gateways and RTU is represented by IEC61850 protocol
[10].
2) IEC 60870–5–104
It is a Master-Slave protocol, released in 2000 which
provides a communication profile for monitoring and control
between two automation systems.
The IEC 60870–5–104 specification combines the
application layer of IEC 60870-5-101[11] and the transport
functions provided by a TCP/IP (Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol) [12].
In the architecture presented in Figure 2, IEC 60870–5–
104 protocol is used to exchange data between Gateway and
NCC, where the NCC is the Master/Controlling station and
HV-DCS is the Slave/Controlled station.
Being a multilevel architecture, the HV-DCS Gateway
acts as a Master and MV-DCS RTU as a Slave. It is observe
 that the Gateway play both role, Master and Slave. In Figure
2, HV-DCS under IEC 60870–5–104 is either a controlling
station or a controlled station.
3) Modbus Protocol
It is a Master-Slave protocol, released in 1979 and is still a
standard communication protocol for connecting industrial
electronic devices.
In Figure 2 Modbus protocol is used for the
communication with auxiliary services equipment and ATS
(Automatic Transfer Switch) device. There are two types of
implementations, one is Modbus RTU with RS232 physical
interface which connect one RS232 device to one BCU port,
in a peer-to-peer communication link, and the second
implementation is Modbus RTU with RS485 physical
interface which connect the substation AC/DC monitoring
and control devices, in a multi-drop communication link. The
first implementation required a full-duplex communication in
a range of 5 meters and the second one was necessary due to
long distance from the BCU to the field devices (around 500
m) and the need of connecting multiple devices on the same
link.
4) Ethernet protocol.
It is defined by IEEE 802.3. standard and is still the most
popular set of protocols for the Physical and Data Link
layers. Ethernet protocol is preferred in electric power
substations for its data transfer quality, high speed, security
Fig. 2. Multilevel DCS architecture
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and reliability. Even if Ethernet operate at different speeds
and use different types of media, all the versions are
compatible with each other being able to communicate in
the same network through interconnection devices such as
bridges, hubs, and switches. In the study case, the IEDs
communication boards can go up to 100 Mbps, known as
Fast Ethernet and the industrial computers and switches
have Ethernet interfaces which ca go up to 1,000 Mbps,
known as Gigabit Ethernet. Ethernet cooper cable type
are Eurocable CAT7 SFTP (Shielded Foil Twisted Pair)
protected externally by a polyurethane sheath and the 4-pair
grouping of foiled wires are shielded by flexible braided
screening. The optical fiber used inside the perimeter of
substation is multimode, as the maximum distance does not
exceed 2000m. Multimode fiber type is 62.5/125, which
means a core size of 62.5 micrometers (μm) and a cladding
diameter of 125 μm. The communication outside of the
substation used for tele protection functions is realized by a
single mode optical fiber with a smaller diameter core that
allows only one mode of light to propagate, respectively a
core size of 9 micrometers (μm) and a cladding diameter of
125 μm. A smaller optical fiber core facilitates a lower
attenuation and creating the ability for the signal to reach a
longer distance.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The results of the study are formulated on the basis of a
comparison between the implementation of a single DCS
system over the whole process and the integration of an
existing system in the new one, even having the possibility of
operating in parallel the two systems.
In addition to IEC 61850, IEC 60870-5-104 protocol is
mandatory in the HV-DCS architecture for the
communication link with NCC (National Control Center)
and for the communication with MV_DCS as well.
The use of mixed architecture achieves a short bump in
case of RSTP and a bump less rerouting for segment failures
in case of PRP network links. The IEC 61850 protocol
defines the restrictions and limits of these messages, but
does not define a specific implementation solution so that
these messages are delivered in the required parameters,
assuming that the communication network guarantees all the
requirements of these messages. By using two different
LANs is losing the advantage of exchanging GOOSE
messages between all IEDs between the two networks.
As the Ethernet LAN can carry mixed traffic such binary
status, metering, IED settings, GOOSE messages, in order to
not overload the network, all the HV bays are installed in
the switchyard, closed to the monitored and controlled field
equipment. This is done by extending the station bus into
the switchyard near the source, to convert voltages, currents,
and status sampled directly to Ethernet packet stream, to use
as much as possible the GOOSE and Sampled Values
service, aspects that contributes to an important copper
wiring eliminations by replacing them with messages on data
networks.
To integrate the MV-DCS in HV-DCS, the optimal
solution under the requirement of keeping bot systems is the
use of IEC 60870-5-104, to take advantage of the Ethernet
well known network infrastructure. Being a Master-Slave
protocol, the exchanged data between two systems must pass
through the 20 kV RTU. Since there is only one RTU, any
communication failure of it separated completely the two
systems. As the two substations exchange some binary
inputs, controls and measurements, in addition to their
transmission over the network through IEC 60870-5-104
protocol, all those signals must be wired as well, leading to
extra effort in term of materials and engineering.
As the medium voltage IEDs have IEC61850
capabilities, the best implementation would have been the
removing of all elements such RTU and local HMI and
connect all the medium voltage IEDs together with the high
voltage devices in a single network, to fully benefit of
IEC61850 capabilities.
V. CONCLUSIONS
Although at first glance the operation of two
separate DCS systems may suggest some advantages and
cost savings for the owner, following this implementation the
impact of operating with different technologies was
highlighted.
The first aspect related to a DCS implementation is
to use the common automation technologies available for all
the vendors for an easy and compatibility with modern IT
facilities and a better interface with business and plant
management staff.
The DCS high availability is achieved with a star or two
separates Ethernet LANs in a mixt architecture PRP and
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RSTP, meaning that there will not be failures due to a single
point of failure within each of dual redundant LANs.
The implementation of an old system without a very
documented and a proper design brings some risks such:
- Risk of missing production goals because an outage
must be extended.
- Risk of emergency/abnormal operations if process
control is partially lost;
- Risk of a safety incident.
GOOSE messages are self-monitored continuously, while
this cannot be achieved by using electrical wires. More than
that, the speed of GOOSE message control can be faster than
a wired connection. To ensure the interoperability with the
modern DCS, the integration of the old systems required
costly protocol converters, meaning additional
communication delay in the network. Distributed IEDs in the
switchyard closed to the field sensors and the use of GOOSE
messaging, replace a big amount of copper wiring with more
convenient messages on data networks.
Further optimization in term of wired connections,
communication failure and delay caused by network load
will be to take into consideration the WLAN (Wireless Area
Network) network in substations by using WAPs (Wireless
Access Point) instead of Ethernet switches. With the actual
progress of 5G technologies there is the ground to build DCS
network architectures with Wi-Fi topology very soon.
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