The PAC World Magazine Reports From the 30 Year Anniversary of IEC 61850 in September 2025

The 30 year anniversary of IEC 61850 in September 2025 was a big success.

The report mentions me: "The presentations were bracketed by the first one from Karlheinz Schwarz about how all of this started in the past Millenium ..."

I am very thankful for the invitation by Dr. Fred Steinhauser (Omicron) to speak about the history ... 

Click HERE for the Report in the PACW.

Click HERE for more photos and a link to my "Millenium" presentation.

When browsing the Web, I see many more papers, reports, posts, ... on IEC 61850 for substations and for applications beyond substations.

More to come: With IEC 61850-8-3

Final Vote on IEC 61850-7-410 (Hydroelectric Power Plants ) is Positive

The edition 3 of the standard IEC 61850-7-410 has been accepted to be published in April 2026:

Communication networks and systems for power utility automation –
Part 7-410: Basic communication structure –
Hydroelectric power plants – Communication for monitoring and control

The document is very detailed and comprehensive: almost 700 pages!

IEC has published a short news on the new document.

Congratulation to the WG 18 of IEC TC 57!

The document is an integral part of the IEC 61850 standards series. Unlike the standard for Wind Power Plants (IEC 61400-25): which is partly an independent standard series. The latest draft for the information model for wind turbine applications (Edition 3) is harmonized with IEC 61850!

OT Security - Kongressbeiträge "Security unter Kontrolle" jetzt Online

Zweitägiger Kongress öffnet die "Tore" ... alle Vorträge online!!

SECURITY UNTER KONTROLLE ist der dialog- und praxisorientierte Kongress für alle, die sich mit Security in der Industrie beschäftigen. Security? Bekommen wir unter Kontrolle!

Um Security für Automatisierungstechnik müssten Sie sich mal kümmern – wenn Sie bloß wüssten, wie genau? Das ist das Ziel von SECURITY UNTER KONTROLLE. Automatisierer, Ingenieure und Praktiker befähigen, Security selbst in die Hand zu nehmen.  

Das in die "Hand nehmen" ist leicht gesagt ... es ist zu hoffen, dass das Management in den Firmen die Mitarbeiter unterstützen, dass sich die Leute darum kümmern können!

Ich hoffe, dass die vielen Minuten Videomaterial so aufbereitet werden, dass sich die wesentlichen Aussagen und Erfahrungen in vielleicht einer Stunde in einem "kondensierten" Video kostenfrei erleben lassen.

Viele Erfolg!

New Work Item Proposal on IEC 61850-8-3 has been accepted by 95 % of the TC 57 National Committees

In December 2025 the NWIP (57/2866/NP - proposed project number: IEC 61850-8-3) was published for voting and comments:
https://blog.nettedautomation.com/2025/12/long-awaited-christmas-gift-for-smarter.html

Today we are happy that the NWIP has been approved by IEC - only one country disagreed in the voting process.

IEC 61850-8-3
Communication networks and systems for power utility automation –
Specific Communication Service Mapping (SCSM) –
Mapping to Direct Message Specification (DMS), JSON Encoding Rules, and WebSockets 

The result of this work will very likely change the usability of IEC 61850 outside substations.

Stay tuned to follow the progress.

IEC 61850: Work-around for MMS

Very interesting paper just published ... presenting a work-around for MMS ;-)

Integration Method for IEC 61850 into Legacy and Modern PLC Systems

I am a little bit surprised ... when I worked for Siemens (Karlsruhe) I published two papers in the year 1991 (35 years ago!) expecting that MMS could be implemented into a PLC:

Click HERE for the paper “Bridging MAP to Ethernet” [PDF, 720 KB, 1991]

Click HERE for the paper “Fieldbus standardization: Another way to go” [PDF, 720 KB, 1991].

Today we know that MMS could be integrated into PLCs ... 

Gateways work always - definitely.

The expected new work on IEC 61850-8-3 (another mapping than to MMS) would change the situation tremendously:

Communication networks and systems for power utility automation –
Specific Communication Service Mapping (SCSM) –
Mapping to Direct Message Specification (DMS),
JSON Encoding Rules, and WebSockets 

Click HERE for more information on the planned project.