IEC 61850 Editions – Help to Prevent Confusions

After my recent Newsletter on IEC 61850 many experts visited the blog post of the first discussion on Editions which summarizes:

BUT there will be not an EDITION 2 of the standard SERIES IEC 61850 per se!! Various parts (of the first 16 parts) will be revised and extended and then published tagged as EDITION 2.

New parts will be published with the tag EDITION 1, e.g., IEC 61850-80-1 (Guideline to exchanging information from a CDC-based data model using IEC 60870-5-101 or IEC 60870-5-104) - IEC/TS 61850-80-1, Edition 1.0, 2008-12

Click HERE for the complete post.

There are a lot of confusions when people talk about Editions of IEC 61850.

In a new paper it is reported: “Edition 2.0 of IEC 61850 Standard has been released considering valid technical issues and future aspects of protocol usage. … compares the IEC 61850 Edition 2.0 specification to its predecessor Edition 1.0.”

Click HERE for that paper.

There is hope that experts will use more precise language when it comes to editions of the many parts of IEC 61850 and related documents.

In addition to the question of the Edition of the standard there is another question, when it comes to the Devices that implement IEC 61850: Does this or that Device conform to IEC 61850 Edition 1 or Edition 2?

Since there is NO EDITION 2 of the STANDARD, a Device could NOT be characterized as an IEC 61850 Edition 2 Device!!

We have to differentiate the various aspects of the Standard: Which Logical Nodes, Common Data Classes, Services, which subset of the Configuration Language Edition 2, et cetera are implemented.

Edition 2 of any part of IEC 61850 can mean the following:

1. (Usually: Most) Definitions of parts tagged Edition 1 have been taken over in the same parts tagged Edition 2 without any change.
2. (Some) Definitions of parts tagged Edition 1 have been taken over in parts tagged Edition 2 with fixes or minor changes. During the tissue process the parts tagged Edition 1 have already been “fixed” to some extend.
3. (Less or more) New Definitions have been added in parts tagged Edition 2. [Service tracking in IEC 61850-7-2, many new LNs in IEC 61850-7-4, …]
4. (Some) Definitions of parts tagged Edition 1 have been moved to parts tagged Edition 2 without changes. [e.g., LN STMP from IEC 61850-7-410 Ed1 to IEC 61850-7-4 Ed2; Substitution has been moved from IEC 61850-7-2 Ed1 to IEC 61850-7-3 Ed2, …] 

A Device A that implements those definitions from several parts tagged Edition 1 that have not changed in Edition 2 of these parts is compliant to edition 2 of these parts without any modifications! If a Device B implements some new features of one or more parts tagged Edition 2, then these new features have to be listed in some detail to understand the situation. Some detail means that the implemented features per part tagged Edition 1 and/or Edition 2 have to be listed.

Examples:

1. A Device may just implement a new LN from Edition 2 of part IEC 61850-7-2; the other definitions are used as defined in Edition 1 of the other parts like IEC 61850-7-3, 7-2, 8-1, … So, is this an Edition 1 or Edition 2 Device? Both! But we better do NOT TAG a Device being Edition 1 or Edition 2. It’s a Device implementing the services according to the PICS of part IEC 61850-7-2 Edition 1 (the subset used may be unchanged in Edition 2), IEC 61850-8-1 Edition 1, … and the STMP LN of IEC 61850-7-4 Edition 2.).
2. The same Device could be understood as implementing the STMP LN according to a part that is tagged Edition1: The STMP LN is still officially published in IEC 61850-7-410 Edition 1. Edition 2 of 7-410 will not have the STMP LN any more – it is already moved to 7-4 Edition 2.

Users should not wait until a Device or the Communication Stack is compliant to Edition 2 of the Standard IEC 61850!! You will never get such a Device because there is NO Edition 2 of IEC 61850. You may want to use one or the other new service of IEC 61850-7-2 Edition 2 (like Service tracking of control block services) or a new LN from IEC 61850-7-2 Edition 2 or from IEC 61850-7-420 Edition 1 or IEC 61850-90-7 Edition 1 …

Always list some details what has been implemented from the various parts tagged Edition 1 or Edition 2 – if you want to prevent confusion. 

Additional discussions on this topic will follow – time permitted.

Stay tuned.