How Vattenfall wants to benefit from IEC 61400-25

The IEC standard series 61400-25 (Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants) provides a solution for access to wind power information with standardized data names and semantic. It gives possibilities to procure monitoring and control solutions as separate parts, and to use a single system to store, analyze and present wind power information.

Paper from Vattenfall discusses the potential cost savings - quite interesing:
Use of IEC 61400-25 to secure access to key O&M data

Vattenfall has been involved in the development of the international standard from the very beginning. This paper gives an introduction to the IEC 61400-25 series of standards and presents an overview of the different parts. Furthermore it describes how Vattenfall and other wind power owners and operators can benefit from the standard.

GE Multilin demo on IEC 61850 based HardFiber Process Bus at Cigré 2008 in Paris

GE Multilin has demonstrated their new IEC 61850 based HardFiber Process Bus System at Cigré 2008 in Paris. There were many experts that seem to be surprised seeing this quite simple approach used for HardFiber. HardFiber may be a first step in replacing copper wires between the switch yard and the control house.

The solution is - of course - quite restricted compared to what IEC 61850 could provide for a Process Bus.

One benefit - among others - is: the Bricks for HardFiber are available.

One drawback is: Bricks are (to my knowledge) interoperable with GE Relays ONLY. To be compatible with the Bricks it would require implementing GE-specific features ... these go beyond the standard IEC 61850!

Information on HardFiber can be found here.

Download the comprehensive Manual [4.5 MB, PDF]

Siemens sold more 1000 plants with IEC 61850

Siemens reported during the Cigré exhibition in Paris (25-29 August 2008) that they have sold more than 1000 plants with some 50 000 IEC 61850 compliant devices.


According to a statement made in January 2008 Siemens is selling more IEC 61850 compliant devices than expected earlier!

IEC 61850 Usersgroup at Cigré 2008 in Paris

The UCA booth #95 at the Cigré 2008 in Paris (25-28 August 2008) is a big success! Many utility experts from utilities, vendors, consultants, system integrators, and universities stopped at the booth to listen to presentations,

discuss the use of IEC 61850

and to make users and vendors happy

or just to collect some useful information.

More reports on the Cigré 2008 follow. Stay tuned.

Schniewindt demo on CT and VT according to IEC 61850-9-2LE in Paris at Cigre 2008

Schniewindt (Neuenrade, Germany) offers one of the first Hybrid Electronic Combined Current and Voltage Transformers (VT and VT) with optical-digital data transfer according to IEC 61850-9-2LE (light editon).

Information about the sensor could be found here.

The merging unit for the CT/VT according to IEC 61850-9-2LE is available (IX 9010 Optically Powered Data Link Ethernet Output module) and in use at the RWE Process Bus R&D project in Nehden (Germany).

For information about the merging unit contact Schniewindt directly.
Information about the IEC 61850-9-2LE could be downloaded.

More details on the RWE project will be disclosed shortly. Stay tuned.

IEC 61850 at the CIGRE Exhibition 2008 Paris

The following UCAIug Booth Sponsors will be present at the UCA Iug Booth (#95) one way or the other:

DIAMOND:
AREVA, GE Digital Energy Multilin, RuggedCom Inc., Siemens, SISCO, Triangle Micro Works, UTInnovation, ZIV, KEMA

GOLD:
Ingeteam T&D, Maschinenfabrik Reinhausen Gmbh, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Toshiba,

SILVER:
EFACEC, Kalki Communication Technologies, Nari Relays, NettedAutomation GmbH, OMICRON, RTDS

Several interesting presentations are scheduled:
http://nettedautomation.com/download/uca_cigre_2008.pdf

Karlheinz Schwarz (NettedAutomation) will be available on Monday and Tuesday (25-26 August 2008) ... see you there.

UCA International Users Group at Cigre in Paris

The UCAIug is one of the crucial supporter of IEC 61850.
Experts of the UCAIug members (e.g. Karlheinz Schwarz from NettedAutomation, Germany, August 25-26, 2008) will be available to meet you at the Cigre 2008 exhibition:

August 25-29, 2008
Stand #95
Palais des Congres
Paris, France

Several presentations will be given on August 25-28, 2008.

See you in Paris.

IEC 61850 for real-time communication

Ethernet is used for many years for real-time applications - most of the solutions use some dedicated hardware or software. IEC 61850 is sometimes understood as a solution that provides protocols and information models running on top of TCP/IP only ... as shown in the Industrial Ethernet Handbook.

IEC 61850 supports the exchange of real-time traffic:

• Peer-to-peer exchange of staus and other simple information by the so-called GOOSE message (Generic Object Oriented Substation Event) - you may replace substation by system ... GOOSE uses Ethertye and multicast messages. Requirement to meet: delay of max 4 ms after failure in the electrical network. GOOSE messaging could be understood as remote I/O communication.
• Peer-to-peer exchnage of sampled values of voltage and current measurements (80 or 256 samples/period - 4 kHz for 50 Hz system and 80 samples/period) (Sampled Value exchange. Samped Value exchange uses Ethertye and multicast messages.

All communication of the client/server for reading, setting, control, reporting, logging, retrieving self-description, ... is using TCP/IP and higher layer protocols.

Independent Interoperability Tests for IEC 61850

STRI has opened an Independent Interoperability Test Lab for IEC 61850.

In order to support Nordic Utilities and industries with the introduction of the new standard for communication networks and systems in substations communication STRI has decided to invest in an extensive interoperability test facility.

This Lab seems to be the first public Test Lab for Interoperability Tests - a real IEC 61850 Competence Center!

Read more ...

RTUs and IEC 61850

RTUs (Remote Terminal Units - German: Fernwirkgerät) are applied in many domains like power transmission and distribution. These RTUs meet the requirements of the past - but the future needs are far beyond the functions currently implemented.

One crucial future requirement is the communication between intelligent electronic devices (IED). A distribution automation device could communicate with many neighboring IEDs (peer-to-peer communication) and figure out autonomously what's going on in the distribution network ... and make decisions without a central SCADA system!

IEC 61850 has all the communication services to support the intelligent IEDs in the distribution network.

A paper from SEL shows an example how to use GOOSE messaging for peer-to-peer communication in distribution automation.

STRI and NettedAutomation GmbH announced cooperation

STRI (Ludvika, Sweden) and NettedAutomation GmbH (Karlsruhe, Germany) announced today a close cooperation on IEC 61850 Comprehensive and Independent Hands-on Training with IEDs (intelligent elelctronic devices) and Tools from Multiple Vendors;

First hands-on training session in Ludvika (Sweden) on 25-28 November 2008

Objective and structure of the hands-on training

This training has the objective to provide both theory and practice on the application of IEC 61850 in a substation

The 4 day course consists of:

• Module 1 gives a level 1 introduction to the IEC 61850 standard together with a summary with real applications and the demonstration of STRI facilities for multivendor interoperability testing.
• Module 2 gives an independent and more detailed update on the IEC 61850 standard for substation and device modeling as well as communication principles with real examples.
• Module 3 will present possible functional allocation and architecture of a typical substation with state of the art IEDs from different manufacturers (ABB, Areva, Siemens) as well as available test sets (Omicron, Doble, Programma) with group sessions on how to optimize the solution.
• Module 4 is divided in two parallel courses.
• Option 1 – IEC 61850 hands-on workshop demonstrating inter-operability of protection and control devices from ABB, Areva and Siemens.
• Option 2 – Substation Configura-tion Language (SCL) hands-on workshop. Learn what you need to know for specification, evaluation, verification, and maintenance of IEC 61850 substations and IEDs.

Wind Power and IEC 61400-25

BTC and Deutsche WindGuard develop Wind Power Plant Control and Management System for
Offshore Wind Farms using IEC 61400-25 open communication more details ...

IEC 61400-25-4 (Mappings) approved as International Standard

The fifth part of the International Standard IEC 61400-25-4 "Wind turbines - Part 25-4: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants - Mapping to communication profile" has been approved as International Standard on 01. August 2008!

The four parts IEC 61400-25-1, -2, -3, and -5 have already been published in 2007.

Voting result: 93 % approval !!