The next wave of Ethernet Switches and Routers for Smart(er) Grids

Have you heard of SISCO in conjunction with IEC 61850? Which S/C-isco? I mean the "C"-Cisco. May be you did not expect Cisco getting involved in the Power market!

But "In electric substations there are so many sensors, meters and other control elements," said Inbar Lasser-Raab, a senior director of network systems at Cisco. "Tens of millions of elements will be connected to the network through these routers and switches," she said.

If each element provides some 100 signals, we will have to manage billions of signals! What is the right approach to manage these signals? Signal lists? Signal lists provided by field busses? There is only one international standard that has the answer to that challenge: IEC 61850 - The standard for (process) information management! Or?

Click HERE for more information.

Seminar and Training Opportunities - Update

STRI (Ludvika/Sweden and NettedAutomnation (Karlsruhe/Germany) offer two comprehensive SAS Seminars and Training opportunities in Paris/France the week before the Cigré Conference (18-20 August 2010) and in Stockholm/Sweden (02-05 November 2010).

General seminars will be conducted by NettedAutomation in Frankfurt/Germany (22-24 September 2010) and in Dallas/Texas (19-20 October 2010)

Click HERE for the updated schedule.

Mitsubishi Electric will Invest 7 Billion JPY in Smart Grid Technology - New Approach

New approach in Japan with regard to Smart(er) Grids:

Don't discuss what could be done - just do it!

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation announced the other day that it will invest
a total of 7 billion yen by March 2012 in a project to build facilities within the company’s production sites in Japan for experiments designed to establish advanced smart grid technologies. The project will contribute to the company’s efforts to support the adoption of sustainable power supplies worldwide.

Mitsubishi Electric’s smart grid business will be carried out as a company-wide project spanning the company’s five business segments. In April 2010, Mitsubishi Electric established two project teams to promote development in smart grid technology. The Power Grid Project in the Transmission & Distribution Systems Center will be responsible for smart grid electric systems and equipment. The Next Generation Energy Communication Project in the Communication Networks Center will be responsible for the smart grid communication network.

Click HERE for the full press release.

Copy machines and security

You may think: A copy machine has nothing to do with security - you may be right with the old machines manufactured some 10 years ago. But what's about the digital copiers?

What happens with the copy of your passport the hotel staff makes? It may be communicated all over ... thanks to the digital images taken and stored.

What has all this to do with IEC 61850? May be a lot: Think of someone that wants to check his SCL file against the standard. There was (may be still is) a syntax checker available on the Internet. You just need to upload your complete SCL file to the tool and let it check your file. Somebody may have taken a copy of that file ... and now knows a lot of access information of that substation or other plant.

Click HERE for a nice report on the issue - quite interesting, isn't it?

Wireless Communication and IEC 61850 meet for Distribution Automation

It was just a question of time to see IEC 61850 running on Wireless communication systems. Here it is: Siemens and RuggedCom announced the other day that SIPROTEC will use WiMAX 802.16e to communicate IEC 61850 GOOSE messages for various (distributed!) functions in Distribution Automation Systems.

We have always said that one of the crucial benefits of IEC 61850 is that it can use advances in the domain of high speed communication solutions developed for the IEEE 802 suit.

It may take a few more years to see the distributed functions specified by the standard IEC 61499 (Function Blocks). The benefits of distributed functions (versus centralized control systems) is that "the faulted segment is
quickly isolated by the relay(s) and where possible, segments at the end of a feeder have service restored through the tie-point switch. The relays are “self-aware” and operate based on real-time information they have about the network, so no master is required."

Click HERE for the press release.

Click HERE for some discussion on IEC 61499 and IEC 61850 based distribution automation.

IEC 61850-7-2 Ed.2 published for final approval

IEC has published the IEC 61850-7-2 Edition 2 of "Communication networks and systems for power utility automation – Part 7-2: Basic information and communication structure – Abstract communication service interface (ACSI)" for final approval.

Ballot on the FDIS (IEC TC57 document 1065) closes on July 02, 2010.

The second edition improves as follows:

• class diagrams of edition have been updated,
• data types not required have been removed,
• errors and typos in the first edition haven been corrected,
• substitution model has been moved to IEC 61850-7-3,
• service tracking for control blocks have been added,
• the view concept (conceptually described in edition 1) will be implemented according to the new work on role bases access (RBA),
• security issues are solved by the IEC 62351 series, and
• several terms have been harmonized with those in the other parts.

For a copy of the FDIS contact your national IEC TC 57 committee.

The Model of IEC 61850-7-2 and its relation to other parts is shown in the following figure (modified slightly: added additional 7-x):

Two-day special Course on Crucial Standards for Smart Grids in Dallas (TX), October 19-20, 2010

A two-day special seminar and training on key standards for Smart Grids (IEC 61850, IEC 61400-25 and DNP3) will be conducted by Karlheinz Schwarz during the

Remote 2010 Conference & Expo
October 19-20, 2010
Dallas, Texas

Useful information and interoperable information exchange are among the most crucial needs for Smart(er) Grids. The “NIST Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Roadmap” recommends several standards for the interoperable exchange of information at the process level. Crucial standards like IEC 61850 and DNP3 are marked as high priority solutions. These standards are used in various application domains in medium and high voltage power systems. While most transmission systems are well monitored and automated there is almost no monitoring and automation in distribution networks. One of the crucial application domains for IEC 61850 is power (gas, oil and water) distribution.

This course is designed for utility IT and engineering staff who are tasked with
specifying, organizing, managing and verifying open standards-based projects
aimed at sustainable interoperability. The application of the standards is not restricted to power system automation - its use is underway in many automation application domains like factory or process control automation. The roots of the standard IEC 61850 are - among others - the factory and process automation domains in the eighties.

Click HERE for more information on the event.