SIGRA Alternative: Web Based Fault Record Analysis

SIGRA is a capable piece of software, and most people looking for an alternative to it are not unhappy with the analysis. They are unhappy with everything around the analysis: that it lives on one managed Windows machine, that the record has to travel to that machine, and that the yard has SEL and ABB relays in it as well as SIPROTEC.

This page sets out what SIGRA does according to its own manual, where Detego covers the same ground, and the cases where you should keep using SIGRA. Every SIGRA statement here is drawn from the SIPROTEC Fault Record Analysis SIGRA V4.61 manual, document E50417-H1140-C070-B3.05, edition 10.2019. Siemens ships newer builds than that document, so read each claim as a statement about what the V4.61 manual lists, not as a claim about what the current product can or cannot do.

The short version

SIGRA is a Windows desktop application distributed with the SIPROTEC engineering suite, built around seven views, and it reads Siemens native record types that third party tools do not. Detego is a browser workspace that reads COMTRADE, covers the same core analysis views, and adds a layer that reads the record and writes the finding rather than only drawing it. If your fleet is entirely SIPROTEC and your records never leave DIGSI, SIGRA is the better fit. If your records arrive as COMTRADE from several vendors, or reach people who do not have the Siemens toolchain installed, Detego is worth a look.

Why engineers look for a SIGRA alternative

• It is a desktop install on a managed machine. The V4.61 manual lists the designed for operating systems as Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise version 1803, Windows 8.1 Enterprise, Windows 7 SP1, and Server 2008 R2 used as a workstation, plus VMware, and asks for roughly 5 GB of free disk. In a utility that means an IT ticket and a build, which is a real obstacle when the person who needs to look at the record is a contractor, a commissioning engineer on site, or a colleague at another company.
• The fleet is mixed. SIGRA is built around SIPROTEC. A substation with SEL, ABB, GE and Siemens relays in the same yard produces four vendors worth of records and one Siemens shaped tool.
• Sharing a finding means sharing a screenshot. A desktop tool produces images. The record itself, with the cursors still on it, does not travel.
• Reading the record is the slow part. Every view in either tool is a display. Turning what is displayed into a defensible conclusion is still manual work.

View by view

SIGRA organises its work into seven views, listed in section 1.2 of the manual. This is the honest mapping onto the Detego tabs.

Six of the seven map across. The manual also lists single ended and two ended fault location, inserting a second record into an open one, synchronising a remote end record, COMTRADE export in the 1991, 1999 and 2013 revisions, network parameter dialogs, calculated signals built with the four arithmetic operators, gap filling, and setting a chosen phase angle to zero as the reference. Detego has direct counterparts for multi file alignment, computed signals and the phase reference. The network parameter model is handled differently, through settings applied per recording.

What SIGRA does that Detego does not

This section matters more than the one above it. If it is wrong, nothing else on this page deserves to be believed.

• Native SIPROTEC record types. SIGRA opens Siemens fast scan, slow scan, continuous and trend records directly, and opens from DIGSI 4, DIGSI 5, WinCC and PQ Analyzer. Detego reads COMTRADE only. If your process starts at a raw DIGSI record, that is a genuine capability gap and not a matter of preference.
• The harmonics heatmap. Generated from SIPROTEC records. Detego has no equivalent view.
• It is already there. Installed, licensed, and wired into a DIGSI workflow that people know. That is worth more than most feature comparisons admit.

What Detego adds on top of the views

The seven SIGRA views are displays and calculations. An engineer reads them and forms the conclusion. Detego covers those same displays, and then Detego AI reads the record itself and writes the finding: what type of fault, on which phases, when it started and when it cleared, whether the current transformers saturated, whether the directional decision was consistent with the impedance, and what in the record supports each statement.

It is not a chat window bolted onto a chart. The analysis calls the same calculation modules that draw the tabs, so the numbers it reasons over are the numbers on screen, and it can consult the manufacturer manual for the relay that made the record when a setting or an element name needs checking. The output is a report you edit and send, not a screenshot you paste into an email.

For what that method looks like done by hand, see how to read a fault record.

Who should switch, and who should not

Consider Detego if: your records arrive as COMTRADE from more than one relay vendor; the people who need to see a record do not all have the Siemens toolchain installed; you work from more than one machine, or from a machine you do not control; you need the analysis written up rather than only displayed; or getting software installed at your organisation is slower than the fault investigation it is meant to support.

Stay with SIGRA if: your fleet is SIPROTEC and your records are native Siemens types rather than COMTRADE exports; the harmonics heatmap is part of how you work; or SIGRA is installed, integrated with DIGSI and doing its job. A tool that fits the fleet is not a problem in search of a replacement.

Plenty of teams will run both, which is the realistic outcome for a Siemens shop that also receives records from contractors and other utilities.

Moving a record across

There is no migration project, because there is nothing to migrate. Fault records are files, not a database.

1. If the record is already COMTRADE, a CFG and DAT pair or a single CFF file, skip to step three.
2. If it is a native SIPROTEC record, export it to COMTRADE from SIGRA or DIGSI. The V4.61 manual documents COMTRADE export in the 1991, 1999 and 2013 revisions, and any of the three is readable.
3. Open the viewer in a browser and drop the files in. Channels, sample rate and timestamps are read from the CFG. Nothing is configured first.

The online COMTRADE viewer is the same workspace if you want to try it on one record before deciding anything.

Frequently asked questions

What is SIGRA?

The Siemens fault record analysis application shipped with the SIPROTEC engineering suite. The V4.61 manual describes seven views and support for COMTRADE 1991, 1999 and 2013 along with native SIPROTEC record types.

Is there a web based alternative to SIGRA?

Detego runs in the browser and covers waveforms, phasors, impedance, harmonics, fault location and numeric readout on COMTRADE records, with no desktop install.

Can Detego open SIPROTEC records?

Not natively. Detego reads COMTRADE 1991, 1999 and 2013 plus CFF. A SIPROTEC record needs exporting to COMTRADE from SIGRA or DIGSI first.

Does Detego replace SIGRA?

For COMTRADE work it covers the same core views and adds the written analysis. For native Siemens record types and the harmonics heatmap it does not, and a SIPROTEC shop working from raw DIGSI records should keep SIGRA.

What about SEL, ABB and GE records?

Any relay that writes COMTRADE opens the same way. On the SEL side specifically, which record you pull off the relay changes what you can conclude from it, and that is covered in the SEL event report format. For a wider survey of the tools in this space, see COMTRADE viewers compared, and for Softstuf WaveWin specifically, the WaveWin alternative.