Substation Design
Steve Hudson of Dominion Energy’s substation department, manages transmission and distribution level projects across the company’s footprint from Virginia to North Carolina. Contact him at stephen.p.hudson@dominionenergy.com.
Arnold Fry manages POWER Engineers’ Substation BIM Department. Before joining POWER, he managed Duke Energy’s Transmission System Standards Department. Contact him at arnold.fry@powereng.com.
Thanks to advances in information technology, Building Information Modeling (BIM) for substation design promises to help utilities better manage their assets as well as save time and money.
Instead of depending on two-dimensional technical drawings, utilities like Dominion Energy are working to create 3D physical models, which act as digital twins of substations. Because these models are based on stored data, they will eventually provide an intelligent replica of protection and control systems. A connection between the physical and P&C models ensures that changes in one model lead to changes in the other.
Steve Hudson of Dominion Energy's substation department manages transmission and distribution level projects across the company's footprint from Virginia to North Carolina. An early adopter of BIM-based design, Hudson discussed the importance of technological relevance when it comes to hiring and retaining engineering staff with POWER Engineers' Arnold Fry.
Arnold Fry was responsible for the initial creation and development of what became the Substation Design Suite software. He is the co-founder of the Substation Design Solution Industry Consortium, which has more than a thousand members representing more than three hundred industry companies.