Clarity LED3 Series Rear Projection Video Wall Enhances Control of National Power System

Litgrid AB, is the electricity transmission system operator for the Northern European country of Lithuania. Managing domestic electricity flows while also integrating the national power system into the European power infrastructure requires continued investment in advanced technology. Included in that investment by Litgrid is a video wall system from Planar Systems that comprises the primary monitoring and control platform in its control center in Vilnius, the country's capital city.

Meeting key business and operational objectives

"The Planar video wall supports our key business objective, which is to have an improved overall view of our transmission system," says Gintautas Monkevicius, head of Litgrid AB's power system control center. "It provides operators with detailed imagery that is essential to ensuring the safety and reliability of our national power system. This view is a significant improvement over that which the previous monitoring system provided." Monkevicius adds that as a result of the capabilities provided by the new video wall, "Litgrid is now able to control all of the national power system from one control center, whereas before we needed to work from two control centers which was more costly and less efficient."

Litgrid AB outfitted the newly renovated Vilnius control center with an array of Planar's Clarity™ LED3 Series rear projection displays. It was assisted in the implementation by ELSIS TS, the Kaunas, Lithuania-based systems integration company which has extensive experience designing and deploying digital video displays in the European control room environment. With input and support by ELSIS TS, Litgrid deployed 36 Clarity LED3 Series displays (c67RP-LED3) in a twelve-wide by three-high (12 x 3) configuration. With each display measuring approximately 53 inches by 40 inches, the total video wall encompasses nearly 550 square feet. On the ELSIS TS side, the effort was led by Ramunas Bazevicius, head of sales for the company.

Addressing complex control room requirements

"Planar's Clarity LED3 Series is proven technology that is ideally suited to the 24/7 operational demands of a complex control room," says Bazevicius. "It has a wide range of capabilities that operators can count on to maintain awareness of normal transmission grid performance and also to see critical events taking place in the power system at any second and respond to them before they become problems that can lead to failures."

Among the capabilities important to Litgrid is the Clarity LED3 Series illumination system. This system—which has no lamps or other consumable parts—has a 1200-lumen light engine that delivers 800-nit brightness over an industry-leading 60,000 hour lifetime. Further, the Clarity LED3 Series is extremely efficient, producing the most nits per watt in the industry—up to 80% more. "That means images with more than sufficient brightness are delivered at a lower power level, which enhances not only our operational control capability but the total cost of ownership of the video wall as well," Litgrid's Monkevicius says.

Because Clarity LED3 Series displays operate at a lower power level other benefits accrue. For one, the video wall requires less cooling than competitive systems. This means that Clarity LED3 Series parts last longer than with other video wall systems and translates into a more service-free installation. "Inherent in all this is the fact that Clarity LED3 Series is a powerful but simply designed system. It requires few service calls which keeps our time and labor costs down and those savings can be passed along to the utility," says Bazevicius of ELSIS TS.

Delivering industry-leading features and capabilities

Finally, the Clarity LED3 Series rear projection video wall provides a high level of capability and flexibility where displayed content is concerned. Litgrid's operators make decisions based on information from SCADA and similar applications, as well as from detailed charts and diagrams related to power system load balancing, system frequency and voltage levels, and data associated with power system disconnects, and changes in electricity flows and other parameters. Further, this content is selected and viewed by each operator at his or her station in front of the Clarity LED3 Series video wall, depending on specific needs. To ensure that this content is clearly visible and comprehensible, Clarity LED3 Series displays features an Auto Color and Brightness (ACB) feature that ensures image and color continuity across a display and the entire wall. Further, Planar created Display Profiles for Clarity LED3 Series that contributes to an optimal visual experience. And lastly, desired images and content can be assigned to specific areas of the Clarity LED3 Series video wall, addressing each Litgrid operator's particular monitoring requirements and preferences.