The Energy Lab 2.0 in Karlsruhe (Germany)

Karlsruhe (Germany, the hometown of Karlheinz Schwarz) is known (among others) for supporting the German Energiewende: The KIT and NettedAutomation GmbH

NettedAutomation is deeply involved in the dissemination of IEC 61850 all over the world. Now I see big investments in Energy related R&D projects in Germany. One of the most crucial activities is the new “Energy Lab 2.0” in Karlsruhe.

Energy Lab 2.0 – The Smart Energiewende Platform
New Research Facility Links Producers with Storage Systems and Consumers –
Investment Totaling EUR 22 Million

“ … The project is embedded in the overall energy strategy of the Helmholtz Association. For the Energy Lab 2.0, the partners plan to build a simulation and control center and a network of energy technology facilities on KIT Campus North, an electrolysis test center at Forschungszentrum Jülich, and a facility for testing power-to-heat concepts at the German Aerospace Center, Stuttgart, by 2018.
The energy platform will link characteristic components for power, heat, and synthesis gas production with various energy storage technologies and consumers. For this purpose, large facilities existing at KIT will be integrated into the Energy Lab 2.0: The solar power storage park, the bioliq pilot facility, and selected energy consumers on KIT Campus North. Electrical, electrochemical, and chemical storage systems as well as a load- and fuel-flexible gas turbine with
current generator will be newly constructed and are planned to complement the network. A simulation and control center at KIT will integrate all network components of KIT and the partners in a smart energy system using information and communication technologies.
This infrastructure facility is the first of its type in Europe. …”

More to come. Stay tuned.

Click HERE for a more comprehensive description [pdf].

IEC 61850 Testlabs Accredited by the UCAIUG

As per October 2015 the following tester are offering Conformance Tests for products implementing IEC 61850:

For further details on the companies or on IEC 61850 testing capability visit:
www.ucaiug.org Testing/ UCAIug Testing Quality Assurance Program.
The approved testers are listed in the directory: UCAIug IEC 61850 Approved Testers

Almost 600 Certificates have been issued by the UCAIUG Users Group.

IEC 62351-12: Resilience and security recommendations for power systems with DER systems

IEC TC 57 has published an important 100+ pages document that cares about the resilience and recovery of power system build on a high penetration of DER systems.

IEC 62351-12 TR (57/1637/DTR):
Power systems management and associated information exchange –
Data and communications security –
Part 12: Resilience and security recommendations for power systems with Distributed Energy Resources (DER) cyber-physical systems

Voting closes 2015-12-25

“ … This document discusses cyber security recommendations and engineering/operational strategies for improving the resilience of power systems with interconnected Distributed Energy Resources (DER) systems. It covers the resilience requirements for the many different stakeholders of these dispersed cyber-physical generation and storage devices, with the goal of enhancing the safety, reliability, power quality, and other operational aspects of power systems, particularly those with high penetrations of DER systems.

In the energy sector, two key phrases are becoming the focus of international and national policies: “grid resilience” and “cyber security of the cyber-physical grid”. Grid resilience responds to the overarching concern: "The critical infrastructure, the Smart Electric Grid, must be resilient - to be protected against both physical and cyber problems when possible, but also to cope with and recover from the inevitable disruptive event, no matter what the cause of that problem is - cyber, physical, malicious, or inadvertent."
“Grid resilience … includes hardening, advanced capabilities, and recovery/reconstitution. Although most attention is placed on best practices for hardening, resilience strategies must also consideroptions to improve grid flexibility and control.” Resilience of the grid is often associated with making the grid able to withstand and recover from severe weather and other physical events, but resilience should also include the ability of the cyber-physical grid to withstand and recover from malicious and inadvertent cyber events. ...”

Two of the most crucial challenges of the future of our power systems (electric, gas, and heat) are the understanding of (1) the power system AND (2) the automation and communication infrastructure. This requires solid and comprehensive education of the engineers – junior and senior. Unfortunately a lot of engineers show a lag in understanding new and existing technologies.

The good news is that – at least in the electric world – we have globally a single standard (IEC 61850) that meets almost all needs and that is accepted and used all over!

Saudi Arabia to Build 50 MW PV Plant

Several companies announced to establish a solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant with a capacity of 50 MW in the city of Saudi Aflaj, which will be the first utility-scale PV plant in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Quite interesting that Saudi Arabia is expecting a growth of energy demand rising by 8 percent annually and is expected to be 120 GW by 2030.

Click HERE for a news report.

During my visit of Dammam (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) this week (training on IEC 61850) I was (by chance) contacted by a senior engineer (involved in gas related automation) who walked by outside our meeting room, stopped, and asked what we were doing. We talked about this and that.

Then he asked me how we can store PV power … this led us to the situation in Germany where we have several MW scale projects that convert PV or Wind Power into gas. He was very impressed that this is happening in big scale.

Sure, we have a lot of renewable power in Germany.

What to do with all the power? Convert to gas! Yes!

Click HERE to a report on the largest system today in Hamburg (1.5 MW).

Click HERE for some explanations of the basics of power-to-gas.

The gas and heat/cooling domains will find that the IEC 61850 can be used for many applications in these areas – to benefit from the standards used in electric power systems.

Click HERE for some discussion of using IEC 61850 (UCA 2.0) for the gas industry.

More to come. Keep tuned to the IEC 61850 blog.

Comprehensive Alarm Model for IEC 61850 to be developed

IEC 61850 defines many Data Objects that could be used as alarm status points. These points can be easily reported (reporting) and stored in a local store (logging). The alarm information can be sent spontaneously to a SCADA system or any other IEC 61850 client. The need of an alarm management system (alarm needs to be confirmed by one or two or all clients, retrieve a list of all active alarms …) was excluded in the first years of the IEC TC 57 WG 10 work (late 90’s). We have decided to come up with some proposals later … the “later” is here (2015).

A new Task Force is proposed to look at the needs and to harmonize the requirements of IEC TC 88 (wind power) with the requirements of alarm handling from other domains to produce a generic solution within the suite of IEC 61850 specifications.

IEC TC 57 invites experts to join the new Task Force (57/1631/DC):

IEC TR 61850-90-18: Communication networks and systems for power utility automation – Part 90-18: Alarm handling in IEC 61850 based systems

If you are interested in supporting that work contact your national TC 57 committee.

The German Energiewende Needs Communication – Government Pushes for Metering Infrastructure

The German government has published a draft that comprises several proposals for new (to be modified existing) laws:

Digitalisierung Energiewende: BMWi eröffnet Konsultation zu intelligenten Messsystemen

Click HERE for the current draft and related information.

The draft talks a lot about remote monitoring and control. E.g., “Zur Gewährleistung der Fernsteuerbarkeit von Anlagen im Sinne des Absatz 1 Nummer 1 Buchstabe b) ist es insbesondere erforderlich, dass neben der Abrufung der Ist-Einspeisung gemäß Absatz 1 Nummer 1 Buchstabe c) auch eine ferngesteuerte Reduzierung der Einspeiseleistung der Anlage über das intelligente Messsystem erfolgen kann …”

IEC 60870-5-104 for Smart Grids by Efen

Data Exchange According to IEC Standards Data communication is the key to long-term grid stability. To this end, EFEN applies IEC standards to ensure the functionality of its products across borders. The Smart Grid Interface complies with IEC 60870-5-104 to ensure that it is not only state-of-the-art today but also in the future.

Click HERE for the brochure by Efen [English]:

Smart Grid Interface: Intelligent energy distribution
for smart energy supply

Click HERE für die Broschüre von Efen [Deutsch]:

Smart Grid Interface: Intelligenz im Energieverteilnetz
für die smarte Energieversorgung

More to come on the IEC TC 57 standards IEC 60870-5-104 and IEC 61850.

If you need to get your information coming from or going to Modbus, Profibus, Profinet, … being communicated through IEC 60870-5-105 and/or IEC 61850 and vice versa – check HERE.

IEC 61400-25-41 Project Finally Approved

Document 88/567/RVN
Wind turbines - Part 25-41: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants - Mapping to communication profile based on IEC 62541 (OPC UA)

This New Work Proposal was finally accepted due to a late appointment of two additional exerts from two additional countries.
Project title: IEC 61400-25-41 TS Ed.1 (Technical Specification)

The focus is intended to be strictly on IEC 61400-25. It will replace the obsolete OPC-XML-DA mapping. No impact on the work on IEC 61850 web technology (Project IEC 61850-8-2) is intended by this NP.

Click HERE for an overview on the IEC 61400-25 series.

IEC 61850 Interoperability Test in Brussels Was a Big Success

The IEC 61850 Interoperability Test in Brussels (Belgium, at ENTSO-E) last week was a big success. The plenary meeting of the IEC TC 57 WG 10, 17 and 18 was informed about the results on Monday, October 05, 2015.

Compared to the previous IOPs in 2011 and 2013 there were more companies attending in 2015: 19/43/49. Total number of vendors that provided products to test was: 14/20/29. The number of people participating grew from 37/93 to 130 !!

Tests covered: SCL, Client/Server, GOOSE, SV, HSR/PRP, and IEEE 1588

For Client/Server 15 issues were found in 2013, in 2015 just 4. No issue was found on GOOSE.

A total of 32 issues need some attention. The issues will be posted to the tissue database if required.

The first tissues have already been posted:

http://tissue.iec61850.com/tissue.mspx?issueid=1445

http://tissue.iec61850.com/tissue.mspx?issueid=1446

http://tissue.iec61850.com/tissue.mspx?issueid=1447

http://tissue.iec61850.com/tissue.mspx?issueid=1448

The IOP at ENTSO-E has shown that IEC 61850 standard parts and products are very stable … there is no need to wait for applying IEC 61850.