Congratulation - Spanish Utilities put their Heads together

Five Spanish utilities have shared their experience and ideas in trying to reach a high level of Interoperability of IEC 61850 devices from different vendors. The result of the many discussions, tests and projects has been made available the other day (Report of 182 pages full of good information). The group has granted me permission to post the result on this blog. Thanks to the companies:

RED ELÉCTRICA DE ESPAÑA, IBERDROLA, ENDESA DISTRIBUCIÓN, GAS NATURAL FENOSA and HIDRO CANTÁBRICO

"The “E3 - Spanish Electricity Companies for Studies on IEC 61850” is a working group formed by representatives and specialists from the main Spanish electricity companies, who have agreed on the urgent necessity to come to a set of unified criteria about minimal requirements to comply with by the devices to be installed in their substations under the IEC 61850 standard.
This is a result of the common standpoint reached by all participants after the experience gathered through several pilot projects.
The E3 group feeling is that the future success of IEC 61850 will be based not only on filling, under common criteria, the gaps that are still contained within the standard, but also on driving the manufacturer’s developments according to the user’s needs. ..."

For many years I have told the utility industry to get more involved in the use and maintenance of the standards. Many managers in the utility industry have learned that it is worth that their experts share their experience and prepare for the future (build their muscles!). One result of this advice is the report you can download via the link below (after the photo).

There are still many people out that write specifications for an optimized use of IEC 61850 ... sometimes the result is like the car in the following photo:

Hope your specification is more than "Everything as before and use IEC 61850 - one way or the other". The above shown "Design" is good for VW promotion, it attracts people - but the product is not usable.

Click HERE for the full E3 report [6.9 MB, PDF]

Some utility experts are still in this comfortable position:

How long will this last? Some hope: at least until they retire ;-)

Be aware: There is something to do for everyone. Build your muscles for the next generation of technology - with or without IEC 61850 ... it will come. Hope you get strong enough to deal with it.