1. A process for initializing and updating the topology of a high-voltage or medium-voltage electrical power station, the process being intended to optimize the operation of a digital protection system for protecting sets of busbars in the power station and using a basic schematic of the electrical configuration of the power station obtained from information on the type of components used in the power station, and on the possible connections and accesses to said components, said information being provided by an operator from a man-machine interface and assigned to management units of said digital protection system, said management units comprising peripheral measurement units distributed over the power station and at least one centralization unit, the process including the following steps: a topological compilation process is implemented to provide a compiled schematic topology from the basic schematic, and to provide a compiled assignment topology of the components in the power station and of their connections to said management units; a partial graph is obtained for each peripheral measuring unit from the compiled schematic and assignment topologies and from information collected by said unit on the status of the components which are assigned to it, operational search processes being implemented to generate partial graphs whose structure depends on the type of information searched for and the status of each component of the power station; and a complete graph is computed in one or more centralization units by algorithms which superpose partial graphs in accordance with graph theory.