Saturday, February 29, 2020

How Many and Which Information Models are defined in IEC 61850?

I guess you have heard that IEC 61850 defines a lot of Information Models. Yes, You are right.

The models are managed exclusively by the corresponding working groups with the Enterprise Architect UML Tool (the UML data base is for internal use only). The model version:

UML model of 61850 (wg10built6-wg18built3-wg17built5-jwg25built2-tc17built1-tc38built1.eap)

comprises the following number of Logical Node Classes, Data Objects (Attributes), Enumerations and Abbreviations:



An excerpt from the UML modes looks like this:



The UML Model is the single source data base that is used for the extensions and maintenance of the model, as well as the generation of Word or PDF documents ... The PDF documents are sold by IEC and other organizations.

You may complain that the standards are not for free ... hmm ... BUT look: You can download the various Code Components for free.

Click HERE for the Code Component for IEC_61850-7-4.NSD.2007A2.light.zip (IEC 61850-7-4 2007A2 NSD light, see the IEC 61850-7-4:2010 for full legal notices). The full version has additionally the semantic descriptions of the models.

Example of Enumeration:


Example of excerpt of LN Class MMU:



Click HERE to see the list of all Code Components as per today ... more to come soon.

To my understanding you can model many required information generated and consumed by a huge number of applications in almost all application domains of automation in the electrical system and beyond.

As the above example of MMXU shows, you can use this LN Class wherever you have 3 phase AC system!! In a building heating system for the electrical values of a compressor or a fan or a pump or ... the blue sky is the limit for the applications.

Click HERE to learn about crucial details discussing the LN Class MMXU and how it can be applied ... you may have never expected this comprehensiveness of the MMXU.

Note that the 3 phase system was first (more than 100 years ago) - then we have put a facade in front of the measurement function which exposes the measurements as data objects of the class MMXU. The application has driven the class - not vice versa.

The current edition 2.1 models defined in IEC 61850-7-3 and 7-3 are listed in the contents tables of the preview documents. The following Preview documents (free access) for models of the edition 2.1 consolidated versions are available:

Preview IEC 61850-7-3 Edition 2.1
Preview IEC 61850-7-4 Edition 2.1

Example of 7-4 from the preview:



In case you find any error in the standards, please visit the Tissue Database:
https://iec61850.tissue-db.com/parts.mspx

Friday, February 28, 2020

Is Industry 4.0 Really a Revolution? And IEC 61850?

There are so many discussions, concerns, arguments ... Pros and Cons regarding Industry 4.0 or the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4.0, IoT, IIoT, Cloud, Edge, data lake, ...).

The most remarkable statements I have heard are from Mr. Ralph Langner who does not believe that it is a revolution at all ...

"Is Industrie 4.0 actually the 4th Industrial Revolution as touted by it's many proponents. Ralph Langner tackles that question in this 20 minute video from S4xEurope."

Click HERE for the youtube video of his presentation (20 min)

Please find some personal opinions:

Please find a paper discussing the "sprint" versus "marathon" in automation of electric power systems I wrote in 2012 through the following post:

http://blog.nettedautomation.com/2012/03/smart-grids-19th-century-invention.html

Here is part of my experience:

I was (as a 21 year old skilled worker in 1973 ... just married) responsible for maintaining a fire alarm system with 6,000 alarm buttons (from a famous vendor ... full of TTL chips ...). The system stopped almost every night ... I had to drive downhill 60 km ... to switch it off and on and go back home ... I was not skilled enough to do anything serious about it ... just wrote reports to my boss ... he ignored everything ... I quit my job in 1974 and went back to high school in January 1995 and university in 1977 ... 7 1/2 years later I finished university with four kids in 1982 ... went back to that same company ... quit again in 1992 partly, in 1997 completely ...

The most crucial reason to quit in 1992/1997 was: The standardization of industrial communication systems in IEC TC 65 released a myriad of non-interoperable Fieldbusses ... good for selling standards ... very BAD for maintenance people and many others ... can you imagine to be an expert in tens of fieldbusses?!

Check out this post:
http://blog.nettedautomation.com/2017/04/iec-sc-65c-published-5000-pages-of-new.html

Oh my dear ...

I just checked my personal records from the 70s and found the weekly reports of my daily maintenance activities ... spent many days to switch off/on the Fire Alarm System ...

This may happen every hour these days where maintenance people just switch IEDs off and on ... in the hope that it will work after restart.

We need more well educated and skilled experts!!! ... grey hair seniors ...

What's about IEC 61850? Is the introduction of this standard series different compared to the fieldbus standard series IE 61158? Sure ... there is a crucial difference:

MANY Fieldbus standards for ONE application (real-time data exchange) ...

ONE IEC 61850 for MANY applications (real-time, protection, asset data, configuration, engineering, ...SCADA, ...).

IEC 61850 series is quite comprehensive and complex ... Yes. But: it seems to be easier to learn and experience ONE complex standard than to do this for 50+ solutions!! IEC 61850 is not a revolution - it could be used to extend existing solutions ... it provides a new approach that could prevent the proliferation of hundreds of vendor-specific solutions ...

And when it comes to security, there is ONE standard series (IEC 62351) for IEC 61850, IEC 60870-6 (TASE.2), IEC 60870-5-104, DNP3, ... 

Thursday, February 27, 2020

IXXAT Smart Grid Gateway With NEW Possibilities

IXXAT (HMS) has offered their Smart Grid Gateways for some time. Click HERE for some blog posts that give you a good overview of the possibilities so far (HERE for HMS or HERE for Beck).
The other day IXXAT has published an extended range of possibilities to share information between many different communication solutions in almost ALL automation applications:

SG-gateway IO
SG-gateway M-Bus Master
SG-gateway EtherNet/IP
SG-gateway PROFIBUS
SG-gateway PROFINET

New:

SG-gateway Media Converter
SG-gateway Switch

All types support as well:

Modbus-RTU master/slave via RS232/485
Modbus-TCP master/slave
DHCP server, SNTP, Network trace (pcap), SNMPv2c
OPC-UA server
MQTT
Codesys network variables

Optional:

IEC 60870-5-104 client/server with redundancy (Norwegian User Convention)
IEC 60871-5-101 master/slave
IEC 61850 client/server (both roles and GOOSE pub/sub are supported simultaneous)
IEC 61850 GOOSE publisher/subscriber
Outstation DNP3
Hardware versions with 3G or 4G modem

Click HERE to visit the IXXAT website for an overview (German).
Click HERE to download a new 12 page pdf bochure (German).

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Fundamentals of IEC 61850 training programme

Smart Grid Forums offers a 3 day training on IEC 61850 Fundamentals:

17-19 March 2020 
London, UK

Click HERE for details.

You may download selected presentations from 2019:

1. IEC 61850 Standardisation Update - Christoph Brunner
2. New Industrialised Substation Automation System - David MacDonald
3. IEC 61850 System and Tool Testing - DNV GL

Enjoy.