The 30 Year Anniversary of IEC 61850 at Omicron in Klaus (Austria) on September 24, 2025, was a BIG success

The IEC 61850 Community has celebrated the 30 Year Anniversary at Omicron in Klaus (Austria) on September 24, 2025, was really a BIG success. Thanks to everybody that contributed to this success: Omicron employees, IEC TC 57 management, IEC TC 57 WG 10 and WG 19 members, many old friends from all-over. Some photos are already posted at LinkedIn ...

I was asked to tell the IEC 61850 Community the history of the standardization process starting in the 1980s with the fight Tokenbus versus Ethernet, MMS versus FMS, ... x versus y, ...

Click HERE to download my presentation [pdf, 6 MB] 

You can see me on the stage during my presentation:

The event was a great opportunity to meet people I have not met for years, e.g., George Schimmel (Tamarack, later TMW):

I guess I met George the first time in 1985 at the GM Techcenter in Warren (Michigan) ... MAP project.

René Troost and Alain Stuivenvolt from The Netherlands are so smart that they were able to move the stack of 7 layers of the Tower of Hanoi from one stick to another - well done.

On the group photo you find me in the first row/center:

I am still wondering that a lot of experts talk about IEC 61850 as a standard for substations! We are shaping more than the future of digital substations ... after the "Klaus Agreement" (see meeting minutes of the Task Force IEC 61850-8-3) we expect that IEC 61850 will be shaping the future of electric power systems far beyond substations as I discussed some 20 years ago: 

Check HERE a paper on this topic I published in the year 2008.

IEC TC 57 and WG 10 in Figures

IEC TC 57 Working Group 10 "Power system IED communication and associated data models" met last week in Geneva (Switzerland) at the IEC central office.
Mr. Charles Jacquemart (IEC Technical Officer) presented some very interesting figures about the TC 57 and especially WG 10. The following slides are published here with the permission of Mr. Jacquemart.

TC 57 History:


Crucial Publications:






Various TC 57 Working Groups (250 members in WG 10!!):



IEC TC 57 WG 10 is the LARGEST WG in the whole IEC!!



Sales of IEC 61850 standards:



You are right, IEC 61850 is one of the most crucial standard series in IEC and also in the market of power systems!
More to come!

How to Migrate to Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)?

IEC TC 57 just published a new draft document for a future Technical Report:

IEC 62357-200 TR (57/1563/DTR):
Power systems management and associated information exchange –
Part 200: Guidelines for migration to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)

Application: Utility communications using utility-owned and leased networks, including, but not restricted to communication within substations, from substation to substation, from substation to control center / maintenance center, control center to control center, energy management systems, synchrophasors, distributed and bulk energy generation and storage resources and (including fossil fuel plants and renewables) wind-, and solar power generation, storage, demand side management, and demand response for distribution level consumers / producers.

This draft Technical Report addresses the issues encountered when migrating from Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) to the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). It describes migration strategies, covering impact on applications, communication stack, network elements, configuration, address allocation, cyber security, and the related management.

The migration will add new need and require more skills of the engineers. It is highly recommended to have some people that start learning the changes that will come during the next 30+ years.

Maybe you start with a small group as we did in the standardization process 15+ years ago in Seattle (WA) in 1999:

Teamwork makes the dream work!

Be aware that the “network infrastructure” becomes one of the most crucial basics for all other infrastructures.

Would your company’s communications infrastructure survive a blackout like the one in The Netherlands today (2015-03-27)?

“Dutch electricity network administrator Tennet says that a large part of North Holland province, which is home to some 2.7 million people, was hit by the outage.

Tennet said on its Twitter feed that the outage was caused by a “technical fault” a high-voltage power station in the town of Diemen, just outside Amsterdam.”

Source: The Independent

I hope it was not caused by an “unknown” GOOSE Trip Message! … Which – at least – would mean it was not related to TCP/IP … IPv4 or IPv6. I am kidding! … a bit.

Living without Power – Impact of Hurricane Sandy on IEC 61850

Hurricane Sandy is about to hit the U.S. east coast. This impacts the travel to and from the east coast. Additionally, early winter weather conditions in Europe delays flights within Europe … so that several WG 10 experts going to Houston (TX) will arrive one day later. That’s a minor issue.

But more crucial: It is likely that Sandy will cause power outages for hours, days or weeks. What does it mean to live without power? According to the www.naturalnews.com it could be summarized as follows:

Most Americans have simply never lived without power for any extended period of time. No power means:

• No internet (OMG!)
• No TV (gasp!)
• No recharging cell phones.
• No hot showers.
• No laundry machines.
• No dishwashers.
• No heating of your home.
• No lights.
• No toasters or ovens.
• No computers.
• No radios unless you have a wind-up radio or spare batteries.

For some period of time as well:
• No police response services
• No fire response
• No ambulances

Having some renewable sources (PV panels, Solar heating, …) on your roof and more distributed power systems (storage, …) would help to survive to some extend!

I wish all people that are hit by power outages all over that it will not be so severe the days to come!