IEC 61850 Extensions for Fault Passage Indications (FPI)

First Committee Draft (38/436A/CD) of IEC 62689-1 accepted by end of 2012: Current and Voltage sensors or detectors, to be used for fault passage indication purposes - Part 1: “General principles and requirements”.

This standard will introduce a dedicated (extended) IEC 61850 namespace (based on existing and new Logical Nodes and Data Objects) to support integration of FPIs into power utility automation. In addition, it defines different profiles of communication interfaces to support the different cases of usage of these FPIs. Some of these cases of usage relies on the “concept” of extended substation, which is intended as the communication among IEDs through IEC 61850 located both along MV feeders and in the main substation, for most sophisticated FPIs version (for smart grids applications, for instance). Then such profile may not be limited to FPI devices, but may embrace features needed to support extensions of these substations along the MV feeder connected to the main substation themselves.

The scope of this standard is to define the minimum requirements for Fault Passage Indicators (FPIs) which are devices able to detect faults, on networks from 1 kV up to 52 kV, providing indications about their localization (upstream or downstream the FPI’s location) or about the direction of fault current. The localization (upstream or downstream) or the direction of the fault current may be detected directly from the FPI and/or from a central system using information from more FPIs and/or considering the features of the feeder/network where the FPI is installed (for instance in case of over-currents in radial operated networks without GD or in case of phase to earth faults in solid earthed radial operated systems).

Part 2 of the standard series will contain the dedicated (extended) IEC 61850 namespace (based on existing and new Logical Nodes and Data Objects).