The BCU 500 is the Bay Control Unit for Substations, compatible with the IEC 61850 standard. BCU 500 uses a new generation hardware and software, compatible with CLP 500, EFACEC’s distributed platform for supervision, control and protection.

The new Unit is based on multiprocessor architecture, including the digital signal processing component. Its architecture enables multiple scalable input/output configurations, characterized in the following way:
- Up to 256 digital inputs, with input voltage configurable by input card
- Up to 128 digital outputs, with the possibility of having an output with actuation time inferior to 50 µs
- Up to 24 AC analogue inputs, with 256 samples per cycle
- Up to 32 DC analogue inputs, with input levels configurable by software

The CPU board also offers 8 digital inputs and 8 digital outputs.

The AC analogue inputs acquisition allows extracting the symmetrical components, frequency, active and reactive power, active and reactive energy, power factor, etc.

As to the communication interfaces, the BCU 500 assures redundant Ethernet connections: 10BaseT, 10BaseTx and 100BaseFx. It has one front isolated RS232 serial port. It may also have up to 2 rear isolated RS232 or RS485 serial ports, or fibre optic (glass or plastic).

The BCU 500 synchronization may be carried out via Ethernet LAN (SNTP), communications protocol, or via IRIG-B signal.

The BCU 500 performs fault detection functions (phase over-current and earth over-current), as well as synchro-check, over and under voltage detection, over and under frequency detection, oscillography (up to 1.5 minutes in the COMTRADE format), load diagram and events logging.

It has also programmable automation functions, programmed according to the IEC 61131-3 standard.

The BCU 500 has a human machine interface, including navigation and selection keys, alarm acknowledgement key, as well as a colour LCD screen for the visualization of alarms list, menus and bay one-line diagrams.

The configuration, engineering and diagnosis environment is the Automation Studio.

Bay Control Unit by EFACEC