UCA International Users Group at DistribuTECH 2010

The UCA International Users Group (UCAiug) will be present at the DistribuTECH 2010: Booth 1932; March 23-25, 2010 - Tampa Convention Center - Tampa Florida

Celebrating 20 years as the leading annual T&D event. DistribuTECH covers automation and control systems, energy efficiency, engineering, demand response, renewables integration, power delivery equipment and water utility technology. No show provides more educational and networking opportunities than DistribuTECH.

Plan for a stop at Booth 1932 for a chat with Karlheinz Schwarz (NettedAutomation) about the latest developments on "IEC61850-Li" (Lite implementation) and to see how it looks like. You will be surprised!

Click HERE to visit the DistribuTCH website.
Click HERE for an abstract of a paper on IEC 61850 at the DistribuTECH
Click HERE to visit the UCAiug

3 day IEC 61850 Seminar and Hands-on Training in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro

STRI and Nettedautomation GmbH have posted the program and registration information for the 3 day Seminar/Hands-on Training with real protection and control IEDs and test sets:

Buenos Aires (Argentina), 26.-28. April 2010
Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), 28.-30. April 2010

Click HERE for the program and registration information [pdf] ... see you there.

IEC 61850 for Smart Grid in High Voltage Valley

STRI (Ludvika/Sweden) will build a Smart Grid using IEC 61850 interoperable solutions for Substation Automation, Wind Power, Hydro Power and Process bus.

The project totals 3 million EUR including 4 PhD students at 3 Swedish Universities and is funded by The Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems together with ABB, High Voltage Valley association consortium and STRI.

Click HERE for more details.

IEC 61850-3 compliant Gigabit Ethernet Switch from Hirschmann

Hirschmann goes Gigabit for substation and other applications. The new Ethernet Switch offers 16 Gigabit Ethernet combination ports (1000 BASE-TX) that will also connect SFP fiber optical transceivers (100/1000 BASE-FX/SX/LX/LH). All ports support version 2 of the Precision Time Protocol (IEEE 1588 V2) as well as optionally Power over Ethernet (IEEE 802.3af).

Further characteristics include an operating temperature range of -40 to +70 °C, high resistance to jarring, and extensive insusceptibility to electrical discharge and magnetic fields. Passive cooling (no fans) and a redundant power supply add to ensure high operational safety. Furthermore, the new Hirschmann™ Gigabit Ethernet switch meets the standards and approval requirement of IEC 61850, IEEE 1613, EN 50121-4, EN 50155, cUL 508, cUL 1604 C1 Div2 and GL.

EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) tested 10 Megabit Shared Ethernet for UCA 2.0 (Utility Communication Architecture) in the mid nineties. I remember when we had some 25 PCs connected to test UCA communication services. EPRI called me during these days to come to Los Angeles to give a presentation on the performance of Ethernet compared to Profibus DP. At that time many experts already believed that Ethernet is a serious option for Substation automation. Nowadays almost all experts are supporting Ethernet - some people that just know the old Shared Ethernet of the eighties don't believe that this is the right solution. After some explanation they change their mind - usually.

Click HERE for product information.
Click HERE for a paper published in 1991-11 on the use of Ethernet instead of Token passing [PDF, 720 KB] - at that time the author did not know about Gigabit Ethernet.
Click HERE for a paper published in 1991-03 on the use of Ethernet as a fieldbus [PDF, 720 KB].

10th Anniversary of NettedAutomation GmbH

NettedAutomation GmbH was established on 2000-01-01. All in a sudden we celebrate the 10th Anniversary. Stay tuned with this blog and the NettedAutomation Website - a source of free information.

After 25 years active participation in the international Standardization of Karlheinz Schwarz, the vision of NettedAutomation GmbH (as posted on our website in 2000) becomes really true - step by step:

The Vision of NettedAutomation GmbH:

The Net is the Automation

Current trend: Very soon we will see Ethernet Switches that can provide some kind of a remote I/O functionality and (distributed) automation functions ... and more to come!

IEC 61850-7-4 approved as International Standard

The FDIS on IEC 61850-7-4 Edition 2 has been approved as International Standard (100 % approval)!

Click HERE for the voting result.

283 Logical Nodes defined in IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25

Click HERE to get a list of all 283 Logical Nodes [PDF, 75 KB] defined in:

• IEC 61850-7-4 Ed2 FDIS
• IEC 61850-7-410 Ed1 IS
• IEC 61850-7-420 Ed1 IS
• IEC 61400-25-2 Ed1 IS

The list contains all LN Class names for your convenience.

New PAP16 to deal with Wind Plant Communications according to IEC 61400-25

The NIST Smart Grid Priority Action Plan (PAP) has been extended by the PAP 16 "Wind Plant Communications".

Motivation for the new PAP:

"While an international standard for wind power plant communications interoperability exists, few if any developers or utilities have implemented it in the US. Given that 1.5 billion dollars in ARRA funds have been awarded to wind plant projects, it is critical to accelerate the adoption of this standard to ensure those funds do not end up going to systems that are not interoperable which eventually results in stranded assets and less market competition. Most of the existing command and control infrastructure for wind power plants and site monitoring is based on proprietary technologies and products or at best old protocols that are not capable of being managed or secured. The Director of the Utility Wind Integration Group (UWIG) – one of the two major wind industry associations – has brought this situation to the attention of the SGIP Administrator and has requested that a new PAP be formed to address this immediate need. "

Schedule:

• February 11: Presentation to UWIG membership in Albuquerque – solicit participation
• March 1: Begin weekly teleconferences
• May: Completed set of use cases and requirements
• July: Completed analysis of gaps in 61400-25 standard
• September: Completed best practices
• October: Completed recommendations to IEC TC 88

Objectives:

• Gather and develop use cases and requirements related to wind power plant communications
• Map these requirements to the existing 61400-25 standard and identify gaps and issues that are hindering its use in the US
• Develop best practices on the application of 61400-25
• Provide specific recommendations to the IEC TC 88 working group responsible for maintaining the 61400-25 standard to address the gaps identified.

Click HERE for the PAP16
Click HERE for the list of all PAPs
Click HERE to visit the Users Group for IEC 61400-25 USE61400-25

Deutsche Normungsroadmap Smart Grid

Am 02. Februar 2010 wurde beim BMWi in Berlin der erste Entwurf der deutschen Roadmap für Smart Grids (E-Energy) vorgestellt und diskutiert.

"Dieses Dokuments ist der Entwurf für eine strategische und dennoch technisch orientierte Roadmap, welche die Anforderungen an Normen und Standards für die deutsche Vision des 94 Smart Grids unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der BMWi- und BMU-Fördermaßnahme E-Energy [BMWi] darstellt. Zudem bietet sie eine Übersicht über Normen und Standards in diesem Umfeld, aktuelle Aktivitäten, notwendige Handlungsfelder, internationale Kooperationen und strategische Empfehlungen."

Der Entwurf steht jetzt zur öffentlichen Kommentierung bis zum 05.März 2010 zur Verfügung!

Klicken Sie HIER, um den Entwurf herunterzuladen [pdf].
Klicken Sie HIER für weitere Informationen bezüglich der Kommentierung.

Machen Sie unbedingt Gebrauch von der Kommentierung!

Die DKE hat das Kompetenzzentrum E-Energy als Ansprechpartner zu allen Normungs- und Standardisierungsfragen mit Bezug zur Optimierung, Vernetzung und Steuerung von intelligenten Erzeugern, Speichern, Verbrauchern und Netzbetriebsmitteln in der Energieversorgung mit der Hilfe von Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien (E-Energy/Smart Grid) gegründet. Damit wird die Bedeutung der Normen für die Energieversorgung nicht nur anerkannt, sondern auch mit Rat und Tat unterstützt!!

Klicken Sie HIER, um auf die Webseite des Kompetenzzentrums zu gelangen!

Comprehensive IEC 61850 Training - New Opportunities

NettedAutomation GmbH offers new hands-on training and seminar opportunities in 2010:

Public Courses:

02.-05. March 2010	Moscow (Russia)
26.-28. April 2010	Buenos Aires (Argentina)
28.-30. April 2010	Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
05.-07. May 2010	Frankfurt (Germany)
18.-20. August 2010	Paris (France)
22.-24. September 2010	Frankfurt (Germany)
19.-20. October 2010	Dallas (TX, USA)
November 2010	Stockholm (Sweden)

Training Modules: Click HERE for a list of seminar/training modules.
In-House Courses: Click HERE for an example program for a 5 day training conducted in January 2010.