New Book on IEC 61850

Please note that there is a quite new book (400+ pages) about IEC 61850 for electric power systems:

IEC 61850 Principles and Applications to Electric Power Systems

Editors: Peter Bishop, Nirmal-Kumar C. Nair

Click HERE for details.

The basic approach of the IEC 61850 standard series is to some degree independent of electric power systems and applicable in most automation domains.

Example: Monitoring of a process measurement

The following sketch shows an excerpt of a series of presentations I conducted recently.

A instantaneous measurement (in IEC 61850 xxxx.instMag) can be read at any time by some computer (on the left). The value could come with a quality information saying: Value is ok; and a timestamp.

Instead of polling the value, you may want to receive the value every 10 seconds automatically without polling. Next you may want to receive the value when it changes by +/- 10 % compared to the last reported value. Or you may want to receive a report in case the quality of the value changes from good to bad ... and so on.

IEC 61850 information exchange services for monitoring process values offer many additional possibilities to receive spontaneously sent information. The information to be sent can represent measurements you find in building automation, heating systems, diesel generators, pressure systems, car manufactoriing, ...

Click HERE for papers co-written by Nirmal-Kumar C. Nair (co-author of the new book) and myself (Karlheinz Schwarz). You will be surprised what we published more than 10 years ago! (some papers may not easily be accessible! ... sorry for that).

Stay tuned to the blog to see more on this in the future. 

IEC 61499 Function Blocks At Schneider Electric Automation Solution

 In a white paper published by Schneider Electric you can read:

"The IEC 61499 standard sets a foundation for industrial automation application portability that creates wide-ranging benefits, including easy IT/OT system convergence, improved return-on-investment on software applications that can run independent of any hardware platform, and engineering design efficiency that radically speeds up new product time-to-market. ... Plug and Produce Systems: The move to automation systems based on IEC 61499 is more than a simple technology change. It has the potential to fundamentally change the way processes and machines are designed."

Click HERE for a new white paper on IEC 61499 from Schneider Electric.

Click HERE for a list of posts related to IEC 61499 ... and IEC 61850.

What is a Function in IEC 61850?

The term "Function" is used in a variety of flavors throughout the standard series IEC 61850. If you ask five experts, you may get six answers.
IEC TC 57 has proposed (57/1863/DC) to develop a new Technical report IEC 61850-6-100: "SCL Function Modelling for Substation Automation"
A "function" is more or less a synonym for operation or action ... as described in Wikipedia:
"A function model or functional model in systems engineering and software engineering is a structured representation of the functions (activities, actions, processes, operations) within the modeled system or subject area."
In my seminars I compare IEC 61850 with Logistics:



IEC 61850 defines simple and more and more complex functions. A schedule according to IEC 61850-90-10 defines a set of quite complex (or comprehensive) functions. In most cases the functions defined by IEC 61850 are just functional components that are used as bricks to build a comprehensive application function.
The brick-concept of IEEE 1550 (UCA 2.0) indicated the use of the standard models: the Bricks (which are now the Logical Nodes in IEC 61850).
IEC 61850-7-2 Services define functions (called services) that provide information logistics, e.g., for accessing the device information model, allow exchange of any value made available by a device based on events for real-time and non-real-time applications, or services for controlling a controllable item like a circuit breaker or a fan.
Functions may be composed using the standard IEC 61499 (Function blocks) as described in the following papers:
V. Vyatkin, G. Zhabelova, N. Higgins, K. Schwarz, and N.-K. C. Nair, Towards intelligent smart grid devices with IEC 61850 interoperability and IEC 61499 open control architecture, IEEE Conference on Transmission and Distribution, New Orleans, April, 2010
 N. Higgins, V. Vyatkin, N. Nair and K. Schwarz, “Intelligent Decentralised Power Distribution Automation with IEC 61850, IEC 61499 and Holonic Control“,IEEE Transactions on Systems, Machine and Cybernetics, Part C, 40(3), 2010,
J. Xu, C.-W.Yang, V. Vyatkin, S. Berber, Towards Implementation of IEC61850 GOOSE Messaging in IEC61499 Environment, IEEE Conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN’13), Bochum, July 29-31, 2013
Click HERE for more papers.
More to come ... stay tuned to this blog!

An Approach to Developing Power Grid Control Systems with IEC 61850 and IEC 61499 and Holonic Control

An interesting paper discusses the combined use of IEC 61850 and IEC 61499:

An Approach to Developing Power Grid Control Systems with IEC
61850, IEC 61499 and Holonic Control

by Valentin Vlad, Corneliu Buzduga, and Calin Ciufudean (University of Suceava, Romania)

WSEAS TRANSACTIONS on SYSTEMS, Volume 13, 2014

This paper presents some models and concepts for developing smart power grid control systems based on holonic concepts and the open standards IEC 61850, IEC 61499. Along with the proposed holonic models for different levels of control, we present a simple fault protection application illustrating how the IEC 61499 artifacts can be used for modeling and implementation of IEC 61850 compliant applications.

Click HERE for the above paper.

Additional information of using IEC 61850 and IEC 61499 in Distributed Power Systems:

Distributed Power System Automation With IEC 61850, IEC 61499, and Intelligent Control (Neil Higgins, Member, IEEE, Valeriy Vyatkin, Senior Member, IEEE, Nirmal-Kumar C. Nair, Senior Member, IEEE, and Karlheinz Schwarz, Member, IEEE; IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS, 2010)

Multi-agent Smart Grid Automation Architecture based on IEC 61850/61499 Intelligent Logical Nodes (G. Zhabelova, V. Vyatkin, Senior Member IEEE; IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2011)

More to come.

Siemens reported using IEC 60870-5-104 for DEMS

Siemens DEMS 3.0 stands for third version of their “Decentralized Energy Management System”. It uses IEC 60870-5-104 for communication with power generators, storage devices or loads. The use of open communication and other solutions built-in reduce the engineering cost for virtual power plants by 60 percent – according to Siemens.

What could you do to apply the same cost reduction – or more – if you have to integrate IEDs that provide IEC 61850 information, information exchange and configuration language? Or how to connect a DEMS 3.0 system to IEC 61850?

Here is – I guess – the easiest and shortest time-to-market solution … without writing a single line of program code: The gateway using a so-called com.tom (communication to machine). The topology of an example is shown in the following figure. The gateway is implemented in the upper box.

All WEB PLC objects (inputs and outputs) related to IEC 61850 models are automatically generated from the corresponding SCL files. There is no need to do any manual configuration as long as you have the ICD files of the devices. The object names of the WEB PLC are derived from the object references of the IED/LD/LN.DO.DOA and so on. You see the path names in the I/O list.

All WEB PLC objects can be used to build applications like linking any input with any output (applying the same type – of course): single point input to single point output. The following diagram shows a simple gateway functionality to receive a command via IEC 60870-5-104, route it through an IEC 61850 client to an underlying IEC 61850 server that switches a fan on or off. The status of the FAN LN (using an extended Data Object OpSt) reports the status of the fan. This status is received from the underlying IED via an IEC 61850 report and routed to an IEC 61850 server and an IEC 60870-5-104 server in the gateway.

After “drawing” this diagram, all you need to do is to store the diagram to the gateway (com.tom Basic 3.1 S) and start the program. That’s it.

You may also have figured out the the com.tom Basic 3.1 S integrates an 5-port Ethernet Switch and another independent Ethernet port. This allows to build secure proxy servers/gateways.

The WEB PLC with IEC 60870-5-104, DNP3, Modbus, IEC 61850, … is a very easy, low cost and fast-to-market product that can be applied for many applications running on these communication solutions and for gateways. The application is freely configurable by drawing lines.

If you need complex functions, you can write them in C/C++ or IEC 61131-3 (CoDeSys) and wrap them for immediate use at the WEB PLC. For more complex applications you can program the application in C/C++ or CoDeSys and use the same communication.

Whatever protocol standard is used for a system (IEC 60870-5-104 for Siemens DEMS 3.0) you can easily integrate other devices that run DNP3, Modbus, IEC 61850, … with the com.tom WEB PLC gateway.

You want to learn more about the gateway, please contact us.

Click HERE for information about the com.tom family. The com.tom Basic 3.1, for example, costs 368 Euro plus some license costs for IEC 60870-5-104 and IEC 61850 – this includes already the 5-port Ethernet Switch!

Multiagent Automation based on IEC 61850 and IEC 61499

G. Zhabelova and V. Vyatkin know for their interest in combining IEC 61850 with IEC 61499 have published an interesting paper on

"Multiagent Smart Grid Automation Architecture Based on IEC 61850/61499 Intelligent Logical Nodes"

in Industrial Electronics, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 59, pp. 2351-2362, 2012.

Abstract— Universal, intelligent and multifunctional devices controlling power distribution and measurement will become the enabling technology of the Smart Grid ICT. In this paper we report on a novel automation architecture which supports distributed multi-agent intelligence, interoperability and configurability, and enables efficient simulation of distributed automation systems. The solution is based on the combination of IEC 61850 object-based modeling and interoperable communication with IEC 61499 function blocks executable specification. Using the developed simulation environment we demonstrate the possibility of multi-agent control to achieve self-healing grid through collaborative fault location and power restoration.

Click HERE to download the complete paper.

IEC 61400-25 & IEC 61850 at AWEA WINDPOWER 2011 Anaheim, CA, May 22-25

The interest in the International Standards IEC 61400-25 and IEC 61850 is picking-up globally and also in North America. Some 45 experts form BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology) and BC Hydro had been in a 3 day seminar and hands-on training in Vancouver, BC (Canada). More people were interested to attend – the meeting room just had 45 seats.

This week (Sunday – Wednesday,May 22-25) there is another step towards simple, powerful and easy to use automation devices that support at the

AWEA WINDPOWER 2011, Anaheim, CA, May 22-25:

1. Standardized information and information modeling (IEC 61400-25-2, IEC 61850-7-x),
2. Information exchange (IEC 61400-25-4, IEC 61850-8-1),
3. System configuration language (IEC 61850-6), and
4. Function programming (IEC 61131-3 and IEC 61499):

Booth 185 (Hall D) exhibits the full range of the above standards:

• Beck IPC (IEC 61400-25, IEC 61850, IEC 61131-3, …): Chips, Devices, charging station, PLC, …
• SystemCorp (IEC 61400-25, IEC 61850, IEC 61131-3, …): Stack Software, Devices, Tools, …
• ISaGRAF (IEC 61131-3, IEC 61499, IEC 61400-25, IEC 61850): Programming language/tool running on the Beck IPC Chip

See below the Booth 185 in Hall D:

A video of some 15 MB shows the steps in programming IEC 61131-3 using IEC 61400-25 and IEC 61850 on a Beck IPC Chip:

www.nettedautomation.com/download/isagraf/IEC61850_2011-05-18.mp4

Smart Grid Devices with IEC 61850 and IEC 61499 at IEEE T&D Conference in New Orleans - 21 April 2010

The 2010 IEEE Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition (New Orleans, 19-22 April 2010) has the title: Smart Solutions for a Changing World.

What makes the Grid smart? Smart people that develop smart solutions! One of these smart solutions will be presented (by smart people) on

Wednesday, 21 April, 2010 8:00 AM-10:00 AM
IG01Wd1
Intelligent Grid Coordinating Committee Poster Session

2010TD0592: Towards Intelligent Smart Grid Devices with IEC 61850 Interoperability and IEC 61499 Open Control Architecture

The Smart Grid vision, outlined in EPRI’s “Report to NIST on the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Roadmap”, incorporates into the grid “the benefits of distributed computing and communications to deliver real-time information and enable the near-instantaneous balance of supply and demand at the device level”. This vision implies a multilayer information and control system architecture, with power transmission and distribution layer playing a crucial role in achieving the “smartness” of the grid.

The complexity of this task requires reconsidering grid control architectures, possibly changing them from the traditional hierarchical topology with distributed data acquisitions but central decision making, to decentralized decision making. For that, basic automation devices would need to become “intelligent”. Most advanced version of such devices are currently based on microcomputers with communication capabilities, but the data flow is purely bottom up, from devices to the control center, and control flow is opposite: from the control centre to instruments. In Smart Grids this may need to change to horizontal communication, negotiation and collaborative decision making by the instruments.

There has been considerable amount of research on the corresponding computing architectures capable of implementing such distributed intelligence. For example, multi-agent system architectures for grid automation have been proposed. Unfortunately these ideas cannot be implemented on current grid devices based on proprietary and closed hardware/software platforms. Besides, multi-agent implementations require high computation performance and still cannot deliver sufficient real-time performance and determinism. While multi-agent systems need powerful workstations to run, practitioners in the field are very conservative and insist on high reliability, determinism and performance of the microprocessor-based instruments. Reliable communication is crucial, and interoperability amongst IEDs (Intelligent Electronic Devices) is of paramount importance.

Thus, practical deployment of intelligent multi-agent solution at the transmission and distribution layer of Smart Grid can happen if a new generation of IEDs appears that have open architecture based on industrially accepted standards in the areas of information, configuration, communication and distributed automation.

The paper presented proposes an approach to pave the way to multi-agent intelligent control of grid is using two standards: IEC 61850 and IEC 61499.

IEC 61499 (Function Blocks) promises a framework for gluing those functions together in patterns of increasing capability and complexity.

Abstract-- The paper reports on developments and experiments conducted to prove the feasibility of using decentralized multi-agent control logic in the automation of power distribution networks. The utility network is modelled as communicating logical nodes following IEC 61850 standard’s architecture, implemented by means of IEC 61499 distributed automation architecture. The system is simulated in an IEC 61499 execution environment combined with Matlab and proven to achieve simple fault location and power restoration goals through collaborative behaviour and interoperable devices.

Index Terms-- Smart Grid, IEC 61850, interoperability, distributed intelligent automation, IEC 61499

Automation Standard (IEC 61499) meets Power Standard (IEC 61850)

"The first Conference on Innovative Smart Grid Technologies", sponsored by the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) and hosted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), was held January 19-21, 2010 in Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA. The Conference was a forum to discuss the state-of-the-art innovations in smart grid technologies.

The paper "Towards the Energy Web via Standards-enabled Smart Grid" presented by Prof. Mihaela Ulieru was a big Blast.

Authors of the paper:
Valeriy Vyatkin, Senior Member, IEEE,
Gulnara Zhabelova, non-member,
Neil Higgins, Member, IEEE,
Mihaela Ulieru, Senior Member, IEEE
Karlheinz Schwarz, Member, IEEE and
Nirmal-Kumar C Nair, Member, IEEE

Abstract -- "In this paper we propose an information and control architecture for Smart Grid based on the combination of upcoming industrial standards and intelligent control methods. We make the case that an incremental approach is required for the transition to the Smart Grid and propose a way of doing that through bringing intelligence down to the level of substation automation devices. The architecture employs two strong international standards, IEC 61850 and IEC 61499, to enrich the applications that can be created using interoperable Smart Grid devices. Interoperability and open configurability - key enablers for efficient application of the revolutionary EnergyWeb ideas – are evident in this architecture.
The utility network is modeled as IEC 61850-compliant logical nodes, embedded in an IEC 61499 distributed automation framework. The system is simulated in an IEC 61499 execution environment combined with Matlab, and is proven to achieve simple fault location and power restoration goals through collaborative behavior."

Some 200 engineers - a forward looking crowd, extremely supportive and especially extremely receptive - were in fact quite enthusiastic of the ideas. The presentation was 'Stellar'! "What a genial idea to merge an automation standard with a power standard" has been the Motto everywhere after the talk.

Click HERE for the presentation.

The topic will also be presented and discussed during the IEEE PES T&D Conference in New Orleans, April 19-22, 2010.

IEC 61850-7-4 Edition 2 FDIS open for Ballot

The second edition of IEC 61850-7-4 has been published for final ballot until February 05, 2010:

IEC 61850-7-4 Ed.2:
Communication networks and systems for power utility automation –
Part 7-4: Basic communication structure – Compatible logical node classes and data object classes

The second edition specifies more than 150 Logical Nodes.

The major technical changes with regard to the first edition are as follows:

• corrections and clarifications according to information letter;
• extensions for new logical nodes for the power quality domain;
• extensions for the model for statistical and historical statistical data;
• extensions regarding IEC 61850-90-1 (substation-substation communication);
• extensions for new logical nodes for monitoring functions according to IEC 62271;
• new logical nodes from IEC 61850-7-410 and IEC 61850-7-420 of general interest.

Example of new Logical Nodes in IEC 61850-7-4 Edition 2:

New Logical nodes for functional blocks:

Counter - FCNT
Curve shape - FCSD
Generic filter - FFIL
Control function output limitation - FLIM
PID regulator - FPID
Ramp function - FRMP
Set-point control function - FSPT
Action at over threshold - FXOT
Action at under threshold - FXUT

An example of a PID loop control with an Logical Node FPID representing the attributes (or input and output signals):

Note that IEC 61850 DOES NOT specify the PID loop control algorithm or function. IEC 61850-7-4 Logical Nodes provide the "interface" or the presentation of the signals, the configuration of the object models and the exchange of the values. The Data Object "KP" (Proportional gain) can be set by an ACSI service. Or the Data Object "DAct" (Derivative action) can be read, reported, logged, or GOOSED.

If you are interested to comment on the document, please contact your national committee of the IEC TC 57.