Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Draft IEC 61850-90-16 (Requirements for System Management) Published

IEC TC 57 just published the draft Technical Report (57/2190/DC)

Draft IEC TR 61850-90-16:
Communication networks and systems for power utility automation –
Part 90-16: Requirements for System management for IEC 61850

It contains the key use cases which will be the foundation for defining an appropriate solution meeting these requirements ... to be incorporated into the Technical Report.

This time it is a good chance to help getting the needed use cases defined.

To understand the importance of this part, please check the Introduction:

"The distribution grid is facing a massive roll out and refurbishment of automation equipment to implement deeper monitoring and new smart grid applications. The new equipment to be deployed in order to solve today’s issues (MV voltage and reactive power regulation for example) will necessarily have to be adjustable and updatable in order to face challenges of tomorrow (for example massive electric vehicles fleets, low voltage automation, …) which will arrive long before the end of its 20 years’ service life. Furthermore, there is a necessity for the equipment to adapt to the evolving and growing cyber security threats.
The equipment will therefore need to be patched, updated and reconfigured, and this has to be done remotely due to the great number of equipment. This is a cornerstone of the System Management (SM), which refers to functionalities that are not directly linked to the operational role of the equipment but allow it to perform its operational functions in the best conditions possible. System Management or Smart Grid Devices Management also includes other functions such as asset management or supervision.
These functionalities need to be managed by the grid operator and address multiple devices from
different vendors through independent Information Systems and thus the requirements and exchanges need to be standardized. As these are to be applied to IEC 61850 compliant equipment, these mechanisms need to be integrated in the standard."

By the way, I have not seen anything similar in the non-electric standardization domains. These requirements are more comprehensive than what is in most cases needed for operational purposes. Let's have a look at the German FNN-Steuerbox: It defines currently mainly changing the active power limit (W) ... more or less one value coming from the grid operator or from a pre-configured schedule running at the Steuerbox. Ok. Then there are several needs to log various events ... and finally there is a need for updating certificates, firmware, patches, ... so the core operational object may require only a small fraction of what needs to be defined, specified, implemented, configured, and used. The people may complain: Why is it so expensive for just one setpoint to be modified?

Congratulation to the experts writing this part 90-16.

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