Virtualised grid protection proves effective in UK energy sector
National Grid Electricity Transmission and GE Vernova have assessed the LF Energy SEAPATH project as a platform for deploying Virtualised Protection and Control in the UK's power systems.
The collaboration was undertaken to address challenges resulting from increasing demands on electricity grids, including engineering resource constraints and the scalability of infrastructure. With the energy sector in the midst of a digital transformation, National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) and GE Vernova looked to SEAPATH's real-time virtualisation capabilities in order to evaluate its suitability for supporting critical grid operations.
The challenge
Electricity utilities are seeking ways to modernise their infrastructure while managing limited engineering resources. VPAC - Virtualised Protection and Control - has emerged as a potential solution to streamline these processes and increase operational agility. Benefits include faster deployment and maintenance timelines, easier hardware replacement, and the ability to scale and manage infrastructure remotely.
Traditionally, such real-time and mission-critical applications have relied on proprietary systems, leaving open source solutions largely untested in this domain. The main question for NGET and GE Vernova was whether an open source system such as LF Energy SEAPATH could consistently deliver the necessary performance and reliability.
The solution
The partnership began in late 2022, focusing on a proof-of-concept built around the LF Energy SEAPATH hypervisor and its reference architecture. SEAPATH uses a preemptive Linux kernel, KVM, and QEMU, and it was subjected to significant performance refinements to ensure suitability for real-time substation protection requirements.
The technical approach centred around several key advancements:
- Latency optimisation, achieving 4–5 ms round-trip latency for GOOSE message protection schemes
- Enhanced determinism through methods such as CPU isolation, IRQ offloading, and PCI passthrough
- A hybrid architectural strategy, combining conventional virtual machines for application isolation and containers for scalable deployment of Virtual Intelligent Electronic Devices (VIEDs), in which a single VM could support over 25 Sampled Value streams without loss of performance
- High availability solutions, using clustering and failover mechanisms to deliver redundancy and application self-healing
- Remote management, with remote deployment, maintenance, and injection testing, contributing to operational savings
The results of this proof-of-concept were validated within industry forums, though the project focused on technical outcomes rather than event-based demonstrations.
Results
According to the case study published by LF Energy, the collaboration achieved significant reductions in total cost of ownership. These benefits were observed both in operating expenses and capital expenses, with savings attributed to reduced costs associated with deployment, ongoing maintenance, software patching, hardware, and spare parts.
The effort also contributed to the first official release of LF Energy SEAPATH, anticipated for early 2025, and validated the use of the GE Vernova EdgeOS Virtual Machine for real-time protection applications in energy settings.
Looking ahead
NGET and GE Vernova plan further activities following the case study outcomes. These include expanding the scope of protection functionalities within the virtual IED environment, improving the scalability of both containerised applications and virtual machines, and integrating advanced cybersecurity measures within the architecture.
The initiative underscores how open source platforms are being considered for critical infrastructure and digital transformation in the energy sector. The full report concludes:
This initiative demonstrates how open source projects like LF Energy SEAPATH are not only viable for mission-critical energy applications, but also foundational to the digital transformation of grid infrastructure.
