German E-Energy Roadmap for Smart Grid published

The 70+ page Roadmap of the German E-Energy Projects and German Standardization organizations has been published the other day.

The Roadmap contains many recommendations on how to use existing standards and how to improve or extend those standards. According to the German Federal Minister of Economics and Technology "it is the task now to ascertain the extend to which these approaches can be implemented". He wishes the Roadmap many readers and users.

The Roadmap refers some 50 times to IEC 61850 - IEC 61850 is one of the very crucial standards for Smart Grids. IEC 61850 is likely THE standard that will be used in many domains outside the electrical world. The new edition of the information models (IEC 61850-7-4) contain many new Logical Nodes like STMP (Supervisory of temperatures) that can be used wherever a temperature is to be monitored for limit violation (alarm and trip): in a factory, building, power plant, ship, ...

IEC 61850 is a single standard for many application domains. More to come. Stay tuned.

Click HERE to download the German Smart Grid Roadmap in English [pdf, 2,9 MB]
Click HERE to download the German Version [pdf, 1.3 MB]

IEC 61850 @ CHIP Development Kit (Starter Kit) available

The Beck IPC IEC 61850 @ CHIP Development Kit (Starter Kit) is now available for order: Special price until 2010-05-21!

This is one of the easiest and most cost effective ways to get started with IEC 61850!

The IPC@CHIP DK61 Development Kit is the complete development system for the IPC@CHIP SC123/SC143 Embedded Controller. It contains all the hardware and software components required for the fast development of customer applications.

The fair package also includes:

• DK60 Development Board including the SC143-IEC
• Paradigm C/C compiler on CD®
• CoDeSys CD (IEC 61131-3 PLC programming language)
• IEC 61850Li C
• 100 – 240V/24V plug-in power supply unit
• Programming and Ethernet cable
• SD card
  
  ORDER FORM and other information:
  
• Orderform_Special-Price_DK61-IEC61850
• IEC 61850 Protocol API User Manual
• PIS10 PICS
• Getting_Started_DK61_IEC61850
• General info on IPC@CHIP

First day at Hanover Fair was a big success for IEC 61850 @ Chip

The first day of the Hanover Fair (Hannover Messe 2010) - Monday April 19, 2010 - was a big success for IEC 61850 on the Beck IPC@Chip.

Many experts came by and stopped at the Beck booth E51 in hall 27 to see the IEC 61850 @ Chip in action. Even the German Chancellor, Mrs. Angela Merkel (in the center of the photo), came by and enjoyed seeing the many new products. The Beck booth has one of the crucial products of interest for Smart Grids: IEC 61850 @ Chip!

The booth has been "tagged" with an additional banner at the end of the first day ... as an eye catcher for people coming by on Tuesday and the other days:

We hope that You will stop for a demonstration and some discussion on the benefit of the standard @ Chip:

See you at booth E51 in hall 27 !! Once you are in hall 27 you will not miss the booth!

Manitoba Hydro (Canada) Goes IEC 61850 for 100+ Substations

Cooper Power Systems announced on April 12, 2010, that it is working with Manitoba Hydro and its system integrator, Virelec, to develop fully IEC 61850 compliant substations. The project is intended to modernize, automate and integrate over 100 substations, following the IEC 61850 standard.

Click HERE for the Cooper press release.

Manitoba Hydro, a utility headquartered in Winnipeg, Manitoba (Canada), was looking to replace their current Substation Automation System (SAS) which is a discrete RTU and PLC-based control and metering architecture with an integrated IEC 61850-based architecture. This initiative follows a trend that is observed throughout the world, as the benefits of technologically advanced IEDs and IEC 61850 get more interest from utilities.

A comprehensive 4-day training in 2008 for some 25 of their best engineers helped the Manitoba Hydro "IEC 61850 Team" to write the system specification in a way so that the potential vendors and system integrators got a very detailed and comprehensive specification taking IEC 61850 into account. The responsible engineers wanted to write a document that covers all crucial requirements with regard to the standard. This is contrary to many specifications today that spend one sentence: "Communication: according to IEC 61850."

Click HERE for the White paper from Manitoba Hydro and Cooper.

IEC 61850 Goes University in Sydney - And You?

IEC 61850 is one of the crucial standards that needs to be understood by  young aspiring automation and electrical engineers. ABB has opened a hands-on training lab including their substation automation system at the University of Sydney. This will allow young people to get first experience with the power of the standard.

The Beck IPC Development Kit (DK61) for IEC 61850 / IEC 61400-25 to be presented at the Hannover Messe 2010 (Hanover Fair) at booth E51 in hall 27 from 19-23 April 2010 is an excellent opportunity to get started with IEC 61850 - in real projects, in pilot projects, in university labs, ... any kind of lab or just at your office desk. The DK61 is a 16 Bit programmable micro controller (C/C++, IEC 61131-3 CoDeSys) that has the IEC 61850 stack integrated on the IPC@CHIP.

To my knowledge: This Kit provides the fastest and easiest way to get started with the use of IEC 61850 implementations - and very likely the most cost effective way!

Come and visit Beck IPC at the Hannover Messe Hall 27 Booth E51 - See you there (Plan of hall 27)
Click HERE if you want to get a free entry ticket for the fair.
Click HERE to for more information on the IPC@CHIP with IEC 61850 integrated.
Click HERE to contact BECK IPC for an Request for Quotation (RFQ) for the IEC 61850 Chip, Ready-to-Go modules, and Development Kit DK61.

What are the benefits of IEC 61850?

If you ask different people you get various answers. Guess most experts agree that crucial benefits are: use of TCP/IP, Ethernet, Client/Server, and Layer 2 Publisher/Subscriber (GOOSE and Sampled Values), get rid of copper wires. What else? Information Models, System Configuration Language (SCL), retrieving the self-description of Information Models from IEDs, and ...

Another crucial benefit of IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25 (IEC 61850 extensions for Wind Power Plants - defined in IEC TC 88) is that it is a GLOBALLY accepted STANDARD. Hmm, a standard is a standard! - So, what is special here?

If you implement client/server, GOOSE, and SV it is defined WHICH protocol you have to choose for each of the three: MMS, TCP/IP, ... for client/server, "GOOSE" for GOOSE, and "SV" for SV ... You don't have to choose between 40 or 50 solutions! See the international field bus standard IEC 61158: click HERE for a list of the 50+ field-bus-standards in a single standard.

You should ask (from time to time) this question: What would the situation in the domain of power utility protection, control and automation be WITHOUT IEC 61850? We would have a lot of very different vendor specific solutions, regional standards, utility standards, ... and may be a situation like in the field-bus domain!

"A technical standard is an established norm or requirement. It is usually a formal document that establishes UNIFORM engineering or technical criteria, methods, processes and practices." (according to Wikipedia). This is what IEC 61850 provides: UNIFORM definitions to a high degree. The field-bus standard has TOO MANY NON-UNIFORM definitions.

It's a big benefit that we have prevented really an intoxicating proliferation of protocols and other definitions. We have even prevented two standards for utility communication: In 1998 IEC TC 57 and IEEE agreed to merge UCA 2.0 and IEC 61850 into ONE standard - a great decision! From a global viewpoint we have one situation where we have two standards: IEC 610870-5-101/104 and DNP3 ... this is definitely better than having 10 or more under one number ;-) 

Edition 2 of IEC 61850-7-4 has been published

The second edition of IEC 61850-7-4 has been published as international standard:

Communication networks and systems for power utility automation –
Part 7-4: Basic communication structure – Compatible logical node classes and data object classes

Click HERE to download the preview of part 7-4.

A list of all currently published Logical Nodes and Data Objects can be found HERE.

IEC 61850 on IPC@CHIP® at Hannover Messe, April 19-23, 2010

Beck IPC (Pohlheim, Germany), SystemCorp (Perth, Australia), and NettedAutomation (Karlsruhe, Germany) will present at the Hannover Messe 2010 (Hannover, Germany) in Hall 27 Booth E51 on 19.-23. April 2010 the IEC 61850 integrated on the IPC@CHIP^®, compact modules and ruggedized IEDs for harsh environments based on IPC@CHIP^®.

The IEC 61850 conformant products shown in Hannover are applicable for many domains of utility automation - to make the power delivery system smarter:

• Smart Automation of Power Generation
  Monitoring, protection and control of process and equipment (reactive power control, condition monitoring of turbines, ...)
• Smart Automation of Power Transmission
  Monitoring, protection and control of process and equipment (interlocking, condition monitoring of transformer and switch gears, ...)
• Smart Automation of Power Distribution
  Monitoring, protection and control of process and equipment (fault location, power restoration, condition monitoring of transformer, ...)
• Smart Automation of Vehicle to Grid
  Monitoring and control of process and equipment (charger station, condition monitoring of charging station, ...)
• Smart Automation of Loads and Generation
  Monitoring and control of process and equipment (load control, active and reactive power control, ...)

Due to the fact that IEC 61850 / IEC 61400-25 define many common aspects of standardized information and information exchange services it is obvious that standard conformant products can be applied in many domains outside the power industry: in gas and oil transmission and distribution networks, and in any other industrial automation domain.