The international standard IEC 61850 defines communication protocols for enabling communication between substation-based intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) and protection, control, and measurement equipment. IEC 61850 Protocol Testing is a very important matter.
This standard achieved significant success in substation communication networks and systems management from its initial release. In today's world, it is utilized not only in utilities but also in wind energy and electric vehicle charging.
For What Reason Did IEC 61850 Become So Effective?
- Unifies communications and steers clear of proprietary protocols.
- Facilitates interoperability through the integration of equipment from a variety of manufacturers.
- Lowers costs (time spent on wiring and engineering).
- Enhances the procedures for setup and maintenance.
- A reliable standard that adapts to your changing requirements.
What are the Key Viewpoints?
Different protocols were used by businesses for a long time to keep their network infrastructures running smoothly and allow for communication. The need to integrate these proprietary and standardized protocols led to the development of IEC 61850.
This becomes even more challenging for organizations that are essential to their missions. They need to keep their infrastructure secure at all times, in addition to providing seamless communication.
In addition, the goal of IEC 61850 is to provide interoperability, a fundamental idea that makes it possible to manage and integrate equipment from various manufacturers. The truth is that the IEC61850 standard is being adopted worldwide.
Understanding IEC 61850
There are three levels defined by IEC 61850; please note that the following devices are found at each level:
- Stages of the process: Switches, current transformers, and voltage transformers are among the various switchgear found at this level.
- Bay level: Intelligent electronic devices, or IEDs, can be found here. A process bus is defined in IEC 61850 to allow IEDs, intelligent instruments, and switchgear to communicate.
- Level of the station: includes HMI and SCADA systems utilized for substation control and observation. A station bus is used by the station level to communicate with IEDs at the bay level.
IEC 61850 Communication Protocols
Although Internet protocol structures offer a secure method of data transmission, they are slow for real-time systems. Because of this, the standard speeds up the process for various protocols and applications.
- Manufacturing Messaging Specification, also known as MMS: It is extensively used for application, configuration, and monitoring data exchange between the IEDs and SCADA systems.
- General Object-Oriented Substation Events, or GOOSE: It is used to communicate the status of IEDs between them. Frequently used for tripping teleportation.
- Sampled Measured Values, or SMV, primarily from CT (current transformers) and VT (voltage transformers), provide quick and dependable communication of power system measurement, protection, and control values.
The Substation Configuration Language (SCL) is a component of IEC 61850. Information can be exchanged using this universal language, regardless of manufacturer. This includes the IEC 61850 standard documents' requirements for the representation of modeled data and communication services. The IEC 61850-6 standard document provides details and the complete SCL representation. It includes substation device entity data representation. Communication systems, capabilities, and logical nodes all serve as representations of all associated functions. The ability to export the IED's description into this standard, XML-based language is a requirement for every proprietary tool. The IED Capability Description (ICD) file contains all of the IED's information, making it possible for the user to set up a GOOSE message.
The term GOOSE is not new; it was also used in the IEEE-SA Technical Report on Utility Communications Architecture (UCA TM) - Version 2.0 - IEEE-SA IEEE-SA TR 1550-1999 to describe the utility communications architecture. The Electric Power Research Institute, Inc. (EPRI) owns the trademark for the Utility Communications Architecture (UCA).
The IEC61850 System Configurator is used to import all ICD files, and GOOSE messages can be programmed by specifying the sender (publisher) and receiver (subscriber). The Substation Configuration Description (SCD) file contains a comprehensive description of the system as well as a description of the GOOSE messages. This SCD file must be able to be imported into and extracted from each proprietary configuration tool to produce the IED.
Interoperability between IEDs from different manufacturers is the main benefit of using IEC 61850. It has a common language for configuring devices, self-describing devices, virtualized modeling of logical devices, and a standard data naming convention.
This approach aims to reduce project engineering and commissioning time while simultaneously achieving complete interoperability between devices.
What are the Main Advantages?
- Ensuring that equipment from multiple vendors can communicate without using proprietary protocols.
- Making your substation and its assets more visible
Value for money. - Enhanced configuration and upkeep
- Data representation based on objects
- Making it more straightforward for third-party applications to map and gain access to information from multiple IEDs made by various manufacturers
- Making it easier for application developers to work with, so they don't have to deal with complicated representations anymore.
Conclusion
Although IEC 61850's engineering of signals and setting up templates and functions is very complicated, it makes system specification and integration easier for building a complete system. It is not possible to approach IEC 61850 in the same manner as other legacy systems. The complexity of the initial research and development required before the implementation of a complete system is one drawback of IEC 61850 as an electrical substation automation standard. The descriptive strings that are used to name each element and the standardized object names that are defined to relate to the data are major advantages. The address of the object that enables plug-and-play interoperability between multiple vendors is the object's name. When total life costs are taken into account, both costs and performance have improved from the equipment, integration, expansion, failed service, and commissioning perspectives. To establish a standard and dependable foundation for the control, communication, and protection of substations, the IEC 61850 standard was developed in collaboration with users and manufacturers.
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