Electric power operations have historically relied upon automation technologies for control and management, being one of the key industries leveraging Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) applications. Today, driven by advancements in IT and converged communications — and spectacular growth in demand — SCADA in the power industry has been joined by highly complex Energy Management Systems (EMSs) capable of managing large-scale, end-to-end Intelligent Power Grid.

SGCC manages SCADA, EMS, and related planning, scheduling, operations, and security systems on its integrated D5000 Platform — a complex system of networked servers, storage, DBMS applications, SCADA devices, and highly specialized, real-time applications. The D5000 Platform is a distributed IT environment engineered for high-availability, security, and highly-automated real-time control and management functions across the company’s entire service area.

In addition to health, safety, and environmental concerns is the tremendous economic impact of the power industry. Aside from direct employment and services revenues, the electric power industry enables virtually every other industry, government agency, and institution — from commercial and enterprise customers to the arts and sciences. Safe, reliable electricity is a key economic driver.

Finally, considerations related to national security add another dimension to the strategic importance of safe, reliable electrical power.

Meeting electric power production, distribution, and customer services needs in full compliance with government regulations for reliability, security, and reporting, creates a unique set of challenges facing the D5000 platform:

Automated control and management functions depends on high-availability, low latency communications across multiple channels to support millions of Remote Terminal Units (RTUs) and Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) deployed throughout the grid, and processing of the billions of value/time-stamped data points collected and processed in real time

Any breakdown of the D5000 platform poses threats to the secure operation of the power grid, which not only causes power supply losses, but can also have serious economic impacts and disrupt social stability

Application and data security is a constant concern in an environment of 1.8 million SGCC employees organized into headquarter departments, provincial service providers, and over 30 subsidiaries providing research, engineering, and manufacturing services

Training personnel in the organization is critical, calling for a well maintained and responsive Dispatch Training Simulator (DTS) system

The D5000 platform and its subsystems must be protected against natural disasters and malicious attacks — both known and unknown — with proven backup and recovery procedures in place, including public warning and emergency response logistics

All equipment, from RTUs and PLCs to data center IT infrastructure, networks, and devices must meet Chinese government requirements for uptime availability (99.99%) and Mean-Time-Between-Failure (MTBF) of greater than 25,000 hours

Front-end communications servers in dispatch centers must process telemetry and process control data provided by the SCADA system, with real-time access rates of up to 100,000 IOPS

Power utilities are among the most-tightly regulated industries. For example, the Government of China specifies that work status changes at substations to be reported to the dispatch center within 1 second, and the dispatch center must respond to high-priority management tasks within 2 seconds. To support this requirement, front-end communications servers in the dispatching center need to process telemetry and process control data provided by the SCADA system at data access rates of up to 100,000 IOPS.

Drawing on its deep ecosystem of industry partners, Huawei teamed with the likes of Beijing Sifang Automation Co. Ltd and Nanjing Nari-Relays Electric Co. Ltd to design, propose, and conduct testing of IT products to meet SGCC’s detailed requirements.

As a leading industrial citizen in the Peoples Republic, SGCC and the systems and applications supporting its operations, are expected to serve as an example to the nation and the world of excellence in executing the company’s mission with integrity, dedication, and exemplary social responsibility. By providing the IT infrastructure for the company’s mission-critical D5000 Platform, Huawei and its power industry partners have helped SGCC realize this important goal.

Deployed widely throughout SGCC’s D5000 Platform and the company’s provincial electrical utility providers, Huawei servers and storage provide the reliability and performance necessary support the dispatch center applications — in compliance with government regulations and to a high level of quality for over 1 billion customers.

Says a senior member of the SGCC dispatching automation team, “Huawei servers and storage devices have become standard IT components in SGCC dispatching centers — meeting our requirements for stability, performance, and reliability. In addition, Huawei has proven itself just as reliable, providing responsive service and becoming a trusted solution provider.”