Petrobras Goes IEC 61850 for Refineries in big scale

10 of Petrobras's 12 refineries in Brazil will be equipped with IEC 61850 conformant DCS system 800xA from ABB.

According to ABB "The scale of the modernization program is immense. In addition to building new units for distillation, hydrotreatment, cooking, desulfurization and other processes, Petrobras is constructing 50 new substations and modernizing about 40 others to the new IEC 61850 global standard for interoperable substation automation devices ... enables refinery operators to monitor and control the systems from a single interface and run power management applications and intelligent IEC 61850 substations in the process automation system." Read more on ABB's engagement at Petrobras ...

The integration of IEC 61850 in process control automation systems is one of the expected new use cases for IEC 61850. The original scope of IEC 61850 was "substations", the new is "power utility automation" - still restricted to (electric) power, because IEC is in charge of the "electrical World". The standard series IEC 61850 can be used ALL OVER in the automation world: IEC 61850 outside substations is happing already. More to come.