IEC 61850-90-2 for the Communication With Control Centers

The Communication With Control Centers (from substations, power generation stations, and other sites) is usually based on IEC 60870-5-101/-104 or DNP3. The new part IEC 61850-90-2 will describe how IEC 61850 can be used for the above needs.

Experts from ERDF, Siemens, Solvay and RTE have published a paper that describes requirements, concepts and practical experiences related to the communication with control centers:

“Substation to control centre communication based on IEC 61850: requirements, concepts and practical experiences” (Cigre 2012)

SUMMARY
”Featuring object-oriented data models and a standardized configuration language, IEC 61850 represents the state-of-the-art communication standard for substation automation systems. On the other hand, the control centres increasingly promote object-oriented data models and standardized interfaces for data exchange based on IEC 61968 / IEC 61970 (CIM – Common Information Model). For the interconnection of substations and control centres the use of generic signal-oriented communication protocols i.e. IEC 60870-5-101/-104 or DNP3 is still current practice. In order to overcome the limitations of those legacy protocols in terms of data conversions, elaborated data exchanges and proprietary configurations and to foster the use of a seamless object-oriented communication, IEC TC57 is extending the current IEC 61850 specification to close the gap between substations and control centres. The paper gives an introduction into the topic, presents the relevant use cases and derived
requirements. Furthermore it discusses communication and modeling aspects in regards of the use case specific requirements. These concepts are evaluated against industrial power system operator needs. Foreseen consequences for standardization and practical realization of projects are identified.”

The report concludes:

“The experience from projects and systems in operation have proven the benefits of IEC 61850 substation to control centre communication.”

Click HERE for the full paper [pdf]