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Video: Station-Level Virtualization - A Practical Path for Substation Modernization

Published on 19 Aug, 2026

Social media graphic featuring a server cabinet in an electrical substation. The COPADATA and Welotec logos are displayed in the foreground. This image, or parts of this image, were generated or edited using [AI].

Where should you start with substation virtualization?

Virtualization in substations is often discussed as a vision of the future.

But there is plenty utilities can already do today.

In our webinar “Station-Level Virtualization – A Practical Path for Substation Modernization,” Anton Krupskii from Welotec and Stefan Hufnagl from COPA-DATA explore why station-level applications can be a pragmatic starting point for the virtualization journey.

Starting with HMI, RTU and automation functions, they move from the applications themselves to the complete architecture underneath:

🔹 From hardware-defined to software-defined station-level functions
🔹 HMI, RTU and IED functionality as workloads
🔹 Hardware, hypervisor and network
🔹 A practical two-host reference architecture
🔹 Application, network, hypervisor and hardware redundancy
🔹 Six concrete failure and maintenance scenarios
🔹 Patching and updating without an outage
🔹 Bare metal vs. virtualized deployment
🔹 The path from station-level virtualization towards vPAC

And the discussion stays practical: What can utilities implement now? What should remain on dedicated hardware? And what needs to be considered before consolidating multiple functions onto a common platform?

▶️ Watch the complete webinar recording:

45 minutes of practical discussion about making substation virtualization manageable – one step at a time.

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Topic:

Video: Station-Level Virtualization - A Practical Path for Substation Modernization

Speaker:
  • Stefan Hufnagl
  • Anton Krupskii

Meet our experts

Featured Speakers

Portrait Stefan Hufnagl

Stefan Hufnagl

Industry Specialist Energy at Copa-Data

As a member of the Energy Industry Management team of COPA-DATA, Stefan is dedicated to the design and improvement of modern energy solutions. With more than 20 years of experience in industrial automation he contributes into the continuous development of the zenon Software Platform from COPA-DATA.

From a cross-disciplinary perspective Stefan anticipates trends in power transmission and distribution, generation and storage as well as industrial segments, promoting standardized digital and software-defined automation solutions.

Portrait of Anton Krupskii

Anton Krupskii

Vice President Digital Substation at Welotec GmbH

Anton is leading business development, marketing strategies and product development for the substation automation portfolio at Welotec.


With extensive experience in international business development, computing
technologies, and a strong focus on digital substations, Anton drives
innovation and actively shapes the future of substation automation,
contributing to the IEC, CIGRE, vPAC Alliance and the open source communities.